On multilevel coded MPSK for the Rayleigh fading channel

We derive a new upper bound on the pairwise error probability for MPSK sequences over the Rayleigh fading channel when channel state information (CSI) is not available. This is obtained by adding weight factors in calculating the symbol metrics. Simulation shows that the weight factors which optimize the upper bound are likely to optimize the error rate too. We also design multilevel coded MPSK schemes which are suitable for the Rayleigh fading channel. These schemes are basically in the form of block coded modulation with interblock memory (BCMIM), which was originally designed for an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. The added weight factors are found to be effective in improving the error performance of these BCMIM schemes in case that CSI is not available.