Error-Rate Approximations for Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation: A Flexible Analytical Approach

Bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) has established itself as the prevalent coded modulation scheme for wireless communication systems. There are a number of semi-analytical approaches for BICM performance analysis, all of which have limitations in terms of applicability and/or complexity. In this paper, we present a novel analytical approach to approximate the bit error rate (BER) of BICM. Our approach is unified in the sense that a (i) large class of fading channels, (ii) arbitrary labeling rules, and (iii) all common signal constellations are encompassed, and it is preferable over previous work in that we provide closed-form expressions. We also derive expressions for the asymptotic BER, which reveals the diversity order and coding gain of BICM transmission over fading channels. The accuracy of proposed analytical approximations is validated through comparison with selective simulation results.