Thermal Noise Modulation: Optimal Detection and Performance Analysis

In this letter, we investigate the performance of a wireless communication system based on thermal noise modulation (TNM). In this system, the information is encoded in the variance of the thermal noise, enabling highly efficient low-power transmission. To assess the performance of the TNM scheme, we derive an exact closed-form expression for the bit error probability (BEP) using the maximum likelihood (ML) detector. Additionally, we provide a simple expression for calculating the optimal threshold value for the ML detector. To validate our findings, we evaluate the derived BEP and support it with Monte-Carlo simulation results.