Performance analysis of fractal modulation transmission over fast-fading wireless channels

Fractal modulation schemes have been under investigation for signal transmission over time-varying channels due to their advantages in data transmission at different frequency bands. This allows for an efficient reception also when channel condition variations are present, by selecting the optimal frequency/time resolution based on the current channel condition. In this paper, we present a performance analysis of fractal modulation transmission over Rician fast-fading channels in the presence of AWGN. A quadrature transmission scheme is simulated and compared, in terms of error robustness, to a QAM transmission system. Performance analysis papers in literature do not consider, for fractal modulation systems, time-varying channels, which are quite important as they represent the main configuration for communication systems based on this modulation technique. The novelty of our paper lies on the comparison of a fractal modulation system to a QAM one (core of the OFDM modulation technology, extensively used in broadcasting) using a test-bed simulation environment where additive noise and fast fading are considered, as typical error sources for transmission over wireless channels. Several wavelet families for a fractal modulation scheme have been considered and performance for each one measured; results reported show the effectiveness of the fractal modulation paradigm and confirm its effective utilization in data broadcasting.