Block-coded modulation and multiple block-coded modulation with viterbi decoding for fading channels

This paper describes how block-coded modulation (BCM) and multiple BCM (MBC M) with Viterbi decoding can be designed for use in Rayleigh fading and sev ere Rician fading channels. New codes are developed by modifying known code s to increase the minimum symbol distance, which is one of the distances th at have a strong effect on the bit error rate (BER) performance under fadin g channels. Combined with anti-fading techniques such as fading compensatio n, interleaving, and branch weighting, the new codes significantly improve BER performance. Computer simulations were used to confirm the code perform ance.