Multilevel generalized array coding for Rayleigh fading channel

An efficient multilevel coding system is proposed. Its short time delay is guaranteed by both short block component codes and parallel decoding of levels (PDL). To adopt soft-decision maximum-likelihood decoding to each level, component codes are first reconstructed in the form of generalized array codes (GAC). Various schemes are presented here and their performance obtained by computer simulation over ideal interleaved Rayleigh fading channels. Results show that the utilization of channel state information in parallel trellis decoding can obtain large coding gain for the system. For example, multilevel code (12,8,3)(12,8,3)(12,8,3) can obtain a coding gain up to 29.5 dB when BER is around 10/sup -5/.