Theoretical analysis and simulation of a code division multiple access system (CDMA) for secure signal transmission in wideband channels

Abstract

Chaotic spreading sequences can increase secrecy and resistance to interception in signal transmission. Chaos-based CDMA systems have been well investigated in the case of flat fading and noise presence in the channel. However, these systems operating in wideband channels, characterized by the frequency selective fading and white Gaussian noise, have not been investigated to the level of understanding their practical applications. This paper presents a detailed mathematical model of a CDMA system based on chaotic spreading sequences. In a theoretical analysis, all signals are represented in the discrete time domain. Using the theory of discrete time stochastic processes, the probability of error expressions are derived in a closed form for a multi-user chaos based CDMA system. For the sake of comparison, the expressions for the probability of error are derived separately for narrowband and wideband channels. The application of the system interleaving technique is investigated in particular, which showed that this technique can substantially improve probability of error in the system. The system is simulated and the findings of the simulation confirmed theoretically expected results. Possible improvements in the probability of bit error due to multipath channel nature, with and without interleavers, are quantified depending on the random delay and the number of users in the system. In the analyzed system, a simplified version of the wideband channel model, proposed for modern wideband wireless networks, is used.