Automatic Recognition of Both Inter and Intra Classes of Digital Modulated Signals Using Artificial Neural Network

In radio communication systems, signal modulation format recognition is a significant characteristic used in radio signal monitoring and identification. Over the past few decades, modulation formats have become increasingly complex, which has led to the problem of how to accurately and promptly recognize a modulation format. In addressing these challenges, the development of automatic modulation recognition systems that can classify a radio signal’s modulation format has received worldwide attention. Decision-theoretic methods and pattern recognition solutions are the two typical automatic modulation recognition approaches. While decision-theoretic approaches use probabilistic or likelihood functions, pattern recognition uses feature-based methods. This study applies the pattern recognition approach based on statistical parameters, using an artificial neural network to classify five different digital modulation formats. The paper deals with automatic recognition of both inter-and intra-classes of digitally modulated signals in contrast to most of the existing algorithms in literature that deal with either inter-class or intra-class modulation format recognition. The results of this study show that accurate and prompt modulation recognition is possible beyond the lower bound of 5 dB commonly acclaimed in literature. The other significant contribution of this paper is the usage of the Python programming language which reduces computational complexity that characterizes other automatic modulation recognition classifiers developed using the conventional MATLAB neural network toolbox.