Coded modulation using differential encoding over Rayleigh fading channels

Multilevel coding and bit-interleaved coded modulation using differential encoding and non-coherent reception over flat fading channels are assessed. In order to achieve high bandwidth efficiencies differential encoding is done with respect to phase, as well as with respect to amplitude of APSK constellations. Assuming the channel to be slowly time-varying, encoding and detection are based on blocks of N consecutive symbols (multiple symbol detection). In this paper, we provide the code design and present simulation results. It is shown that only for multilevel coding multiple symbol detection provides significant gains.