Soft decision metric generation for QAM with channel estimation error

The channel code bit log likelihood ratio (LLR) for soft decision decoding is derived for quadrature amplitude modulated signals (QAM). The effect of imperfect channel knowledge on soft decision decoding performance is studied. Our results indicate this effect increases with channel estimation error and/or QAM modulation level. A metric based on generalized log likelihood ratio (GLLR) is derived for soft decision channel decoding with imperfect channel knowledge. Numerical results show that the GLLR-based metric outperforms the conventional minimum distance decoding metric that does not take into account channel estimation error.