There are essentially three areas addressed in the body of this thesis. (a) The first is a theoretical investigation into the design and development of a practically realizable
implementation of a maximum-likelihood detection process to deal with digital data transmission over
HF radio links. These links exhibit multipath properties with delay spreads that can easily extend over 12
to 15 milliseconds. The project was sponsored by the Ministry of Defence through the auspices of the Science
and Engineering Research Council. The primary objective was to transmit voice band data at a minimum
rate of 2.4 kb/s continuously for long periods of time during the day or night. Computer simulation
models of HF propagation channels were created to simulate atmospheric and multipath effects of transmission
from London to Washington DC, Ankara, and as far as Melbourne, Australia. Investigations into
HF channel estimation are not the subject of this thesis. The detection process assumed accurate knowledge
of the channel. [Continues.
