A new bit-interleaved coded modulation scheme using shaping coding

We present a new and simple method for combining constellation shaping and bit-interleaved coded modulation over Gaussian channels. By considering the example of a 3-bit/dim turbo coding scheme using a 16-PAM constellation, it is shown that this technique can provide shaping gains of 0.7 dB, and that error performance within 1.6 dB of the continuous-input channel capacity limit is achieved.