A deep learning method based on convolutional neural network for automatic modulation classification of wireless signals

Automatic modulation classification plays an important role in many fields to identify the modulation type of wireless signals in order to recover signals by demodulation. In this paper, we contribute to explore the suitable architecture of deep learning method in the domain of communication signal recognition. Based on architecture analysis of the convolutional neural network, we used real signal data generated by instrument as dataset, and achieved compatible recognition accuracy of modulation classification compared with several representative structure. We state that the deeper network architecture is not suitable for the signal recognition due to its different characteristic. In addition, we also discuss the difficult of training algorithm in deep learning methods and employ the transfer learning method in order to reap the benefits, which stabilize the training process and lift the performance. Finally, we adopt the denoising autoencoder to preprocess the received data and provide the ability to resist finite perturbations of the input. It contributes to a higher recognition accuracy and it also provide a new idea to design the denoising modulation recognition model.