We propose a new bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM)-based cooperative communication system where different BICM modules can be optimized jointly considering the average signal to noise ratios of the direct and the two-hop Rayleigh fading channels. As such, the full benefit of BICM can be exploited in the context of cooperative communication. Our design considers cooperative communication systems with so called max-min relay selection scheme that has no loss in performance in terms of diversity- multiplexing trade off in orthogonal cooperation. The presented numerical results for rate 1/2 convolutional code with 8-ary pulse amplitude modulation equivalently 64-ary quadrature amplitude modulation show that the proposed design can offer gains up to 1.4 dB over the traditional BICM design for a target bit error rate of 10^(-6). Moreover the results show that the amount of gain depends on the relays' positions and increases with the number of relays available for selection.

Experimental measurements have shown that the noise in many communication channels is non-Gaussian. Bit interleaved coded modulation (BICM) is very popular for spectrally efficient transmission. Recent results have shown that the performance of BICM using convolutional codes in non-fading channels can be significantly improved if the coded bits are not interleaved at all. This particular BICM design is called BICM trivial (BICM-T). In this paper, we analyze the performance of a generalized BICM-T design for communication over Gaussian mixture noise (GMN) channels. The results disclose that for an optimal bit error rate (BER) performance, the use of an interleaver in BICM for GMN channels depends upon the strength of the impulsive noise components in the Gaussian mixture. The results presented for 16-QAM show that the BICM-T can result in gains up to 1.5 dB for a target BER of 10−6if the impulsive noise in the Gaussian mixture is below a certain threshold level. The simulation results verify the tightness of developed union bound (UB) on BER performance.

The performance of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) using convolutional codes in nonfading channels can be significantly improved if the coded bits are not interleaved at all. This particular BICM system is referred to as BICM trivial (BICM-T). In this paper, we analyze a generalized BICM-T system that uses a nonequally spaced signal constellation in conjunction with a bit-level multiplexer in an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. As such, one can exploit the full benefit of BICM-T by jointly optimizing different system modules to further improve its performance. We also investigate the performance of the considered BICM-T system in the Gaussian mixture noise (GMN) channel because of its practical importance. The presented numerical results show that an optimized BICM-T system can offer gains up to 1.5 dB over a non-optimized BICM-T system in the AWGN channel for a target bit error rate of$10^{-6}$. The presented results for the GMN channel interestingly reveal that if the strength of the impulsive noise component, i.e., the noise component due to some ambient phenomenon in the GMN, is below a certain threshold level, then the BICM-T system performs significantly better as compared to traditional BICM system.

Recently, it has been shown that the performance of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) using convolutional codes in nonfading channels can be significantly improved if the coded bits are not interleaved at all. This particular BICM design is referred to as BICM trivial (BICM-T) and is shown to be asymptotically as good as Ungerboeck's one dimensional (1D) trellis coded modulation (TCM). This BICM-T design and analysis considered a simple case of rate 1/2 channel encoder with equally spaced 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellation where the code rate matches with the modulation order as required in TCM transmission. In this paper, we consider and analyze a new BICM-T design that uses a non equally spaced signal constellation in conjunction with a bit level multiplexer. With this design and analysis, one can not only exploit the full benefit of BICM-T design by jointly optimizing different transceiver's modules but also enjoys the same design flexibility as the traditional BICM to independently choose the code rate and the modulation order. The presented numerical results for 64-ary QAM with rate 1/3 code shows that the considered design can offer gains up to 2.5 dB over the traditional optimal BICM design for a target bit error rate (BER) of 10−6.