Design and performance of block-coded modulation for digital microwave radio systems

Two block-coded modulation (BCM) families particularly suited for high-capacity digital microwave radio systems are presented. The first family is based on one-step partitioning, and the second family is based on two-step partitioning of the signal constellation. The alphabet expansion is a decreasing function of the block length, and the constellation is constructed in such a way as to minimize both the average and peak signal powers. Using short block lengths, specific modulation schemes are described that transmit 4, 6, and 8 information bits per symbol. The asymptotic coding gain is only on the order of 2 dB in the first family, and of 3 dB in the second family, but their detection simplicity makes the presented BCM schemes particularly attractive for high-speed applications where trellis-coded modulation (TCM) decoders may be difficult to implement