| Abstract: | It is known that concatenated coding can significantly enhance the performance of digital communication systems operating over fading channels when compared to uncoded or single-coded systems. The price to be paid for such an improvement, however, is a substantial increase in the required bandwidth. In this paper, we consider the use of a concatenation scheme in which the inner code is a trellis-coded modulation (TCM) system. The analysis is carried out for two different outer codes: a binary Golay code and a non-binary Reed-Solomon code. Results obtained for the Rayleigh and Rician fading channels through analytical bounds indicate that the use of this system does provide a significant reduction in the bit error probability, a fact that is also verified through computer simulation. Unlike a traditional concatenated system, the proposed method achieves the coding gain while maintaining acceptable bandwidth efficiency. |
