Performance of Selected Coded Direct-Sequence Receiver Structures in Pulsed Interference

We consider the performance of short constraint-length convolutional codes in conjunction with coherent BPSK direct-sequence spread-spectrum modulation in a variety of pulsed interference scenarios. We explore the use of several types of imperfect interference estimation mechanisms and the resulting impact on Viterbi decoder bit error probability performance. Our digital receiver structures eliminate the need for a fast-acting analog AGC circuit which is often susceptable to spoofing. For the short constraint-length codes under consideration, we provide upper bounds on bit error probability performance under idealized channel modeling assumptions. Departures from these idealized assumptions are analyzed through extensive Monte-Carlo computer simulation.