Importance sampling methodologies for simulation of communication systems with time-varying channels and adaptive equalizers

Two importance sampling (IS) methodologies for Monte Carlo simulation of communication links characterized by time-varying channels and adaptive equalizers are presented. One methodology is denoted as the twin system (TS) method. A key feature of the TS method is that biased noise samples are input to the adaptive equalizer, but the equalizer is only allowed to adapt to these samples for a time interval equal to the memory of the system. In addition to the TS technique, the IA method, a statistically biased, but simpler, technique for using IS with adaptive equalizers that is based on the independence assumption between equalizer input and equalizer taps is presented. Experimental results show run-time speedup factors of two to seven orders of magnitude for a static linear channel with memory, and of two to almost five orders of magnitude for a slowly-varying random linear channel with memory for both the IA and TS methods