On the performance of single-threshold detectors for binary communications in the presence of Gaussian mixture noise

Abstract

In this paper, probability of error performance of single-threshold detectors is studied for binary communications systems in the presence of Gaussian mixture noise. First, sufficient conditions are proposed to specify when the sign detector is (not) an optimal detector among all the single-threshold detectors. Then, a monotonicity property of the error probability is derived for the optimal single-threshold detector. In addition, a theoretical limit is obtained on the maximum ratio between the average probabilities of error for the sign detector and the optimal single-threshold detector. Finally, numerical examples are presented to investigate the theoretical results.