Application of a burst-error-correction Viterbi algorithm to Q/sup 2/PSK on Rician fading channels

This paper deals with the design and implementation of a random-burst-error-correcting soft-decision adaptive Viterbi decoder (AVD) for four-dimensional (4D) quadrature-quadrature phase-shift keying (Q/sup 2/PSK) when operating on Rician fading channels. The characteristics of the Rician fading channels are examined and analysed in terms of the probability distributions of amplitude and burst errors. Having the background knowledge of the burst error distribution, an adaptive random-burst-error-correcting Viterbi decoding strategy is designed for incorporation into a digital Q/sup 2/PSK communication system. Performance results are presented to illustrate the efficiency of the adaptive Viterbi decoder under typical Rician channel conditions.