Block-coded modulation and multiple block-coded modulation withViterbi decoding for fading channels

This paper describes how block-coded modulation (BCM) and multiple BCM (MBCM) with Viterbi decoding can be designed for use in Rayleigh fading and severe Rician fading channels. New codes are developed by modifying known codes to increase the minimum symbol distance, which is one of the distances that has a strong effect on the bit error rate (BER) performance under fading channels. Combined with anti-fading techniques such as fading compensation, interleaving, and branch weighting, the new codes significantly improve BER performance. Computer simulations were used to confirm the code performance