Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation: Fundamentals, Analysis and Design

Preface

The objective of this book is to examine the main aspects of a particularly simple coded modulation scheme known as bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM). BICM is based on bit-level operations, which allows for a straightforward combination of a binary encoder with a nonbinary modulation. Simplicity and flexibility are the reasons for the omnipresence of BICM in current communication systems and also what motivated us to look into BICM-based transceivers.

This work is intended for readers with a background in communication theory who are interested in theoretical aspects of BICM transmission. Various issues we have addressed in this work are motivated by questions we received from the audience during talks and lectures we have given over the years. We have tried to make the content tutorial in style hoping that the numerous examples we have included clarify and illustrate well the main results. The objective was to make the text accessible to graduate students and researchers working on coded modulation and BICM-related issues. To clearly delimitate the main results, we have separated the text—as much as possible—into definitions, lemmas, theorems, and corollaries.

From the beginning of this project, our objective was threefold. First, we wanted to clearly define all the building blocks in BICM transceivers. This is mostly done in Chapters 1–3, which contain definitions and some simple examples. When writing the text, we discovered that many of the “conventional” assumptions ...