On the BICM Capacity

Optimal binary labelings, input distributions, and input alphabets are analyzed for the so-called bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) capacity, paying special attention to the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. For 8-ary pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and for 0.75 bit/symbol, the folded binary code results in a higher capacity than the binary reflected gray code (BRGC) and the natural binary code (NBC). The 1 dB gap between the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) capacity and the BICM capacity with the BRGC can be almost completely removed if the input symbol distribution is properly selected. First-order asymptotics of the BICM capacity for arbitrary input alphabets and distributions, dimensions, mean, variance, and binary labeling are developed. These asymptotics are used to define first-order optimal (FOO) constellations for BICM, i.e. constellations that make BICM achieve the Shannon limit -1.59 \tr{dB}. It is shown that the \Eb/N_0 required for reliable transmission at asymptotically low rates in BICM can be as high as infinity, that for uniform input distributions and 8-PAM there are only 72 classes of binary labelings with a different first-order asymptotic behavior, and that this number is reduced to only 26 for 8-ary phase shift keying (PSK). A general answer to the question of FOO constellations for BICM is also given: using the Hadamard transform, it is found that for uniform input distributions, a constellation for BICM is FOO if and only if it is a linear projection of a hypercube. A constellation based on PAM or quadrature amplitude modulation input alphabets is FOO if and only if they are labeled by the NBC; if the constellation is based on PSK input alphabets instead, it can never be FOO if the input alphabet has more than four points, regardless of the labeling.Comment: Submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Maximum Euclidean distance network coded modulation for asymmetric decode-and-forward two-way relaying

Network coding (NC) compresses two traffic flows with the aid of low-complexity algebraic operations, hence holds the potential of significantly improving both the efficiency of wireless two-way relaying, where each receiver is collocated with a transmitter and hence has prior knowledge of the message intended for the distant receiver. In this contribution, network coded modulation (NCM) is proposed for jointly performing NC and modulation. As in classic coded modulation, the Euclidean distance between the symbols is maximised, hence the symbol error probability is minimised. Specifically, the authors first propose set-partitioning-based NCM as an universal concept which can be combined with arbitrary constellations. Then the authors conceive practical phase-shift keying/quadrature amplitude modulation (PSK/QAM) NCM schemes, referred to as network coded PSK/QAM, based on modulo addition of the normalised phase/amplitude. To achieve a spatial diversity gain at a low complexity, a NC oriented maximum ratio combining scheme is proposed for combining the network coded signal and the original signal of the source. An adaptive NCM is also proposed to maximise the throughput while guaranteeing a target bit error probability (BEP). Both theoretical performance analysis and simulations demonstrate that the proposed NCM can achieve at least 3 dB signal-to-noise ratio gain and two times diversity gain

Turbo trellis-coded hierarchical modulation assisted decode-and-forward cooperation

Hierarchical modulation, which is also known as layered modulation, has been widely adopted across the telecommunication industry. Its strict backward compatibility with single-layer modems and its low complexity facilitate the seamless upgrading of wireless communication services. The potential employment of hierarchical modulation in cooperative communications has the promise of increasing the achievable throughput at a low power consumption. In this paper, we propose a single-relay aided hierarchical modulation based cooperative communication system. The source employs a pair of Turbo Trellis-Coded Modulation schemes relying on specially designed hierarchical modulation, while the relay invokes the Decode-and-Forward protocol. We have analysed the system’s achievable rate as well as its bit error ratio using Monte-Carlo simulations. The results demonstrate that the power consumption of the entire system is reduced to 3.62 dB per time slot by our scheme

On the Design of a Novel Joint Network-Channel Coding Scheme for the Multiple Access Relay Channel

This paper proposes a novel joint non-binary network-channel code for the Time-Division Decode-and-Forward Multiple Access Relay Channel (TD-DF-MARC), where the relay linearly combines -- over a non-binary finite field -- the coded sequences from the source nodes. A method based on an EXIT chart analysis is derived for selecting the best coefficients of the linear combination. Moreover, it is shown that for different setups of the system, different coefficients should be chosen in order to improve the performance. This conclusion contrasts with previous works where a random selection was considered. Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed scheme outperforms, in terms of its gap to the outage probabilities, the previously published joint network-channel coding approaches. Besides, this gain is achieved by using very short-length codewords, which makes the scheme particularly attractive for low-latency applications.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures; Submitted to IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications - Special Issue on Theories and Methods for Advanced Wireless Relays, 201

Near-Instantaneously Adaptive HSDPA-Style OFDM Versus MC-CDMA Transceivers for WIFI, WIMAX, and Next-Generation Cellular Systems

Burts-by-burst (BbB) adaptive high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) style multicarrier systems are reviewed, identifying their most critical design aspects. These systems exhibit numerous attractive features, rendering them eminently eligible for employment in next-generation wireless systems. It is argued that BbB-adaptive or symbol-by-symbol adaptive orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) modems counteract the near instantaneous channel quality variations and hence attain an increased throughput or robustness in comparison to their fixed-mode counterparts. Although they act quite differently, various diversity techniques, such as Rake receivers and space-time block coding (STBC) are also capable of mitigating the channel quality variations in their effort to reduce the bit error ratio (BER), provided that the individual antenna elements experience independent fading. By contrast, in the presence of correlated fading imposed by shadowing or time-variant multiuser interference, the benefits of space-time coding erode and it is unrealistic to expect that a fixed-mode space-time coded system remains capable of maintaining a near-constant BER