Adaptive communications can mean any

communications system A communications system or communication system is a collection of individual telecommunications networks, transmission systems, relay stations, tributary stations, and terminal equipment usually capable of interconnection and interoper ...

, or portion thereof, that automatically uses

feedback Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...

information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

obtained from the system itself or from the signals carried by the system to modify dynamically one or more of the system operational parameters to improve system performance or to resist

degradation Degradation may refer to: Science * Degradation (geology), lowering of a fluvial surface by erosion * Degradation (telecommunications), of an electronic signal * Biodegradation of organic substances by living organisms * Environmental degradatio ...

. The modification of a system parameter may be discrete, as in hard-switched diversity reception, or may be continuous, as in a predetection combining algorithm.

See also