On the impact of SNR estimation error on adaptive modulation

Abstract

In this letter we investigate the impact of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimation on the performance of adaptive modulation. The adaptive modulation technique uses an estimate of the SNR at the receiver to choose a modulation scheme so that a given performance target is met. By adapting the modulation scheme, the link is able to improve the spectral efficiency as compared to static modulation. An analytic expression for the impact of SNR estimation error is derived and it is shown that SNR estimation has minimal impact on the performance.