Bit Division Multiplexing for Broadcasting

This paper aims to improve the throughput of a broadcasting system that supports the transmission of multiple services with differentiated minimum signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) required for successful receptions simultaneously. We propose a novel multiplexing method called bit division multiplexing (BDM), which outperforms the conventional time division multiplexing (TDM) counterpart by extending the multiplexing from symbol level to bit level. Benefiting from multiple error protection levels of bits within each high-order constellation symbol, BDM can provide so-called nonlinear allocation of the channel resources. Both average mutual information (AMI) analysis and simulation results demonstrate that, compared with TDM, BDM can significantly improve the overall transmission rate of multiple services subject to the differentiated minimum SNRs required for successful receptions, or decrease the minimum SNRs required for successful receptions subject to the transmission rate requirements of multiple services.