Some digital receivers for the GSM pan-European cellular communication system

The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) provides the European Community countries with a common digital mobile radio structure for overland communications. The authors describe some new digital receivers that utilise coherent detection for the GSM system. Of the receivers described, that with the classical Viterbi processor, while notably robust, has high implementation complexity for a mobile environment. Some simplified receiver structures have been devised whose algorithms reduce implementation complexity, albeit at the expense of the error probability. With a channel simulator suitable for mobile communications, the performance of the simplified receivers has been evaluated. Through suitable parameter choices, the bit error probability increase can be maintained sufficiently low, while a marked reduction in the computation complexity is achieved.