BER prediction using EXIT charts for BICM with iterative decoding

A method for the prediction of bit-error rates (BER) of bit-interleaved coded modulation systems with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) is presented, which is based solely upon the extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart and avoids extensive BER simulations. Comparisons show an accurate prediction, even for low BERs down to 10^-6. Furthermore, an easy procedure to obtain the optimum rotation angle for a signal constellation set in conjunction with IQ Interleaving is described. Both methods can be applied to all types of channels.