On the interchannel interference in digital communication systems, its impulsive nature, and its mitigation

Abstract

A strong digital communication transmitter located in close physical proximity to a receiver of a weak signal can noticeably interfere with the latter even when the respective channels are tens or hundreds of megahertz apart. When time domain observations are made in the signal chain of the receiver between the first mixer and the baseband, this interference is likely to appear impulsive. Understanding the mechanism of this interference is important for its effective mitigation. In this article, we show that impulsiveness, or a high degree of peakedness, of interchannel interference in communication systems results from the non-smooth nature of any physically realizable modulation scheme for transmission of a digital (discontinuous) message. Even modulation schemes designed to be 'smooth', e.g., continuous-phase modulation, are, in fact, not smooth because their higher order time derivatives still contain discontinuities. When observed by an out-of-band receiver, the transmissions from these discontinuities may appear as strong transients with the peak power noticeably exceeding the average power, and the received signal will have a high degree of peakedness. This impulsive nature of the interference provides an opportunity to reduce its power by nonlinear filtering, thus improving quality of the receiver channel.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]