This article focuses on code design and code selection rules under power and decoding delay constraints for an antipodal (BPSK) modulated and convolutionally encoded communication system. The system operates over a slowly fading AWGN channel, described by the block-fading model. We emphasize perfect coherent detection with maximum likelihood decoding assuming ideal channel information (the instantaneous fading values). The dominant design criterion in this scenario is the code diversity level in terms of blocks while the standard Hamming distance plays a secondary role. A code design procedure, based on maximum distance separable (MDS) cyclic block codes is presented along with a code-search algorithm. The performance results of selected codes are assessed via simulation and compared to those achieved by Reed-Solomon codes with erasure and error decoding.

The correlated Rician channel is a useful model for a slowly fading channel, in which the complex fading process is composed of two quadrature Gaussian processes with a given autocorrelation function. For slow fading the correlation between adjacent symbols is relatively high. The authors investigate the achievable error probabilities over the channel, employing coherent detection and ideal side information on the realization of the fading processes at the receiver. An underlying decoding delay constraint which precludes the use of (ideal) interleaving is assumed. Coded BPSK performance is addressed both with and without the piecewise constant approximation (according to which the fading value remains constant during the symbol duration). For the latter case, that is no piecewise constant approximation, the analysis relies on the Fredholm determinant associated with the fading process autocorrelation function. The authors focus on the exponentially correlated channel. The "worst case" pairs of codewords are identified. The exponential behavior of the error probability with random coding (and i.i.d. Gaussian inputs) is analyzed, and the behavior of the cut-off rate and capacity is addressed. The results enhance the insight to the effect of the basic parameters governing the performance and these are examined in view of previous works and compared to relevant performance results for the block-fading channel model.>

Reliable transmission over a discrete-time memoryless channel with a decoding metric that is not necessarily matched to the channel (mismatched decoding) is considered. It is assumed that the encoder knows both the true channel and the decoding metric. The lower bound on the highest achievable rate found by Csiszar and Korner (1981) and by Hui (1983) for DMC's, hereafter denoted C/sub LM/, is shown to bear some interesting information-theoretic meanings. The bound C/sub LM/ turns out to be the highest achievable rate in the random coding sense, namely, the random coding capacity for mismatched decoding. It is also demonstrated that the /spl epsiv/-capacity associated with mismatched decoding cannot exceed C/sub LM/. New bounds and some properties of C/sub LM/ are established and used to find relations to the generalized mutual information and to the generalized cutoff rate. The expression for C/sub LM/ is extended to a certain class of memoryless channels with continuous input and output alphabets, and is used to calculate C/sub LM/ explicitly for several examples of theoretical and practical interest. Finally, it is demonstrated that in contrast to the classical matched decoding case, here, under the mismatched decoding regime, the highest achievable rate depends on whether the performance criterion is the bit error rate or the message error probability and whether the coding strategy is deterministic or randomized.>

Two different methods of soft-decision demodulation for channels with finite intersymbol interference (ISI) in the presence of additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) are analyzed. In both schemes, the cutoff rate R/sub 0/ of the discrete channel created by the demodulator output quantization is chosen as the design criterion. Expressions for the optimal thresholds of the quantizer associated with the demodulation of binary signals are derived. Results for the channel with memory equal to one symbol duration are presented. As a special case, the (1-D) channel with soft decision demodulation is analyzed. Closed-form solutions show that a 4-b quantizer improves performance substantially in this case.>

The performance of M-ary phase-shift keying (PSK) coded systems in the presence of added white Gaussian noise (AWGN), with a noisy carrier reference in the receiver, is examined. The results are obtained by combining the Chernoff bound technique with the generating function approach. The bit error probability analysis is carried out for 8- and 16-PSK with code rates of 2/3 and 3/4, respectively. The numerical results obtained demonstrate the error performance degradation due to a Tikhonov phase noise process with parameter alpha .>

A lower bound is derived for the uncoded error probability of coherent digital phase-shift-keying without making any assumptions on phase-locked loop speed. An improved upper bound on bit error probability is also derived. The results are applicable to both lightwave homodyne detection, in which the laser's phase noise must be taken into account, and to general partially coherent detection of (binary phase-shift-keying) over the additive white Gaussian noise channel when a noisy phase reference is derived. Bit-error-rate and cut-off bounds are presented.>

A direct-detection photon-limited optical communication channel that uses pulse position modulation (PPM) under a pulsewidth constraint is considered. Overlapping PPM (OPPM) allows multiple positions per pulsewidth, as well as fractional modulation indices (number of pulsewidths per frame) requiring more refined timing than that needed for conventional disjoint PPM (DJPPM). It is shown that even at moderate values of the expected photon count per pulse(Q)--such as needed for high data rates--OPPM outperforms on-off keying (OOK) in both capacity and cutoff rate, even though OOK is uniformly superior to DJPPM. Moreover, efficient use of OPPM is possible with equiprobable input symbols, whereas OOK requires inconvenient asymmetrical inputs to achieve capacity and high cutoff rate efficiencies (nats/ photon). At lower data rates, where capacity efficiency is the prime criterion, a significant advantage (- 20 percent) over DJPPM can be achieved up to efficiencies of about 0.7 nats/ photon. The M-ary photon-limited OPPM channel can be viewed as an ambiguity and erasure channel, in the sense that some channel outputs are ambiguous in only some input symbols and only if no photons are counted is there ambiguity in all input symbols. For largeMambiguities cause bursts of erasures of data symbols. Massey's interlaced encoding, as well as conventional encoding followed by interleaving, are adaptable to this bursty channel, and effect an increase in its cutoff rate comparable to the increase obtainable with DJPPM by the same techniques.