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

Abstract

Upper bounds have been formulated and computed for the error probability of TCM (trellis-coded modulation) on time-dispersive channels. Accurate approximations to ISI (intersymbol interference) PDF's have been used in the formulation. Examples have shown the bounds to be sufficiently tight over a wide range of time-dispersive channel conditions for practical applications. For severe levels of ISI, the bounds must be optimized over a bounding parameter to yield tight bounds; however, for low levels of ISI, a fixed bounding parameter can be used to yield tight bounds. A further simplification that can be used for low levels of ISI is to assume that the ISI has a Gaussian PDF, to avoid having to compute an approximate PDF.<>