Error probability of coherent detection for trellis-coded partial response CPM on Rician fading channels

Trellis-coded continuous phase modulation (TC-CPM) schemes are attractive for bandwidth and power limited communication systems such as mobile satellite communications and land mobile radio communications. A coherent receiver for interleaved partial response TC-CPM is derived. A true upper bound on the bit error probability for flat fading channels is derived by showing that TC-CPM is equivalent to a trellis-coded modulation scheme. The upper bound is evaluated by defining an error-state diagram along with a set of characteristic distances and then applying transfer function bounding techniques. Comparison with simulation results shows the upper bound tight to within 1.5-2 dB.