Performance bounds for trellis-coded modulation on time-dispersive channels

• Published in: IEEE transactions on communications Vol. 42; no. 8; pp. 2534 - 2542
• Main Authors: Carlisle, C.J., Taylor, D.P., Shafi, M., Kennedy, W.K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01-08-1994; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Analytical models; Applied sciences; AWGN channels; Convolutional codes; Decoding; Digital modulation; Error probability; Exact sciences and technology; Information, signal and communications theory; Intersymbol interference; Modulation coding; Modulation, demodulation; Performance analysis; Signal and communications theory; Telecommunications and information theory; Viterbi algorithm; Performance evaluation; Error probability; Gaussian channel; Modulation; Dispersive channel; Decoding circuit; Trellis code; Viterbi decoding; Signal to noise ratio
• ISSN: 0090-6778; 1558-0857
• DOI: 10.1109/26.310613

The performance of trellis-coded modulation (TCM) on additive white Gaussian noise channels is well understood, and tight analytical bounds exist on the probability of the Viterbi decoder making a decision error. When a channel is also time-dispersive, the performance of TCM systems has been studied mainly by simulation. However, simulation is limited to symbol error probabilities greater than 10/sup -6/ and is not a particularly useful tool for designing codes. Tight analytical bounds on the error probability of TCM on time-dispersive channels are required for a more thorough study of performance. Moreover, the design of good codes and optimum metrics for time-dispersive channels requires tight analytical bounds. In this paper we derive analytical upper bounds, which, although requiring numerical techniques for tractable evaluation, are tight for a wide range of time-dispersive channel conditions. The bounds are based on a union bound of error events that leads to a summation of pairwise error probabilities, which are themselves upper bounded.< >