Performance Comparison of M-ary Phase Shift Keying and M-ary Quadrature Amplitude Modulation Techniques Under Fading Channels

Modulation techniques and channel conditions play a major role in the development of wireless communication systems. Information can be sent easily and with little to no error if the right channel conditions and modulation technique are used. To reduce errors during data transmission, an effective communication system must be developed. Most of the research has been done on either M-ary phase shift keying (MPSK) or M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (MQAM) under Rician or Rayleigh fading channels. However, works that consider M-ary phase shift keying (MPSK) and M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (MQAM) under Rician, Rayleigh, Nakagami-m, and AWGN fading channels are rarely investigated. This research examines two fundamental types of digital modulation techniques: M-PSK (M = 2, 8, 16) and M-QAM (M = 4, 8, 16, 64). It also discusses the different types of channels that are used between transmitter and receiver, such as AWGN, Rayleigh, Rician, and Nakagami fading channels, and evaluates the receiver’s BER performance characteristics for each of these channels. The MATLAB simulation results demonstrated that, for the same degree of signal-to-noise ratio, the bit error rate for digital modulations (M-P SK, M-QAM) under an AWGN channel is lower than that achieved over a Rayleigh fading channel. When using the M-PSK modulation technique, the Rician fading channel has more communication impairment than AWGN. When using the M-PSK modulation technique, the Nakagami-m fading channel outperformed the Rayleigh fading channel with the same SNR value.