Iterative packet combining schemes for intersymbol interference channels

We study packet combining techniques for retransmission schemes over intersymbol interference (ISI) channels. Two types of combining schemes are investigated, namely, maximum-likelihood combining (MLC) and iterative combining (IC). By first employing a precoding technique and then by interpreting the ISI channel as a trellis code, the transmissions of the same data packet at different times through the channel can be treated as the parallel concatenation of recursive trellis codes. If interleavers are used in between retransmissions, "turbo" coding gains can be achieved by iterative equalization. It is shown that IC provides excellent performance and outperforms other forms of combining in terms of frame error rate performance both analytically and through simulations.