Exact evaluation of BER for arbitrary modulation and signaling in AWGN channel

Exact evaluation of the bit- and symbol error rates in two dimensional constellation is a fundamental problem of digital communications which has closed-form solutions for particular modulations and/or bits-to-symbol mapping. In this paper we propose a general method which yields the exact results for arbitrary modulation constellation, arbitrary bits-to-symbol mapping and deals with the case of non-uniform signalling. These three conditions define any digital transmission using memoryless modulation thus, our method is a general tool solving all problems tackled in the literature under constraints imposed on one or more of the parameters defining the modulation or signalling type. Such evaluation tool is of practical importance during the design of the modulation. Through numerical simulations we illustrate the advantages offered by the new method when compared to the bounding technique.