Exit charts for iteratively decoded multilevel modulation

We investigate EXIT charts for the design and analysis of Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation (BICM) with iterative decoding. Analytical expressions for EXIT functions of convolutional codes and mappings are derived. For the demapper, we show EXIT functions for different channel models and introduce bit-wise EXIT functions and a symbol-wise description. These functions are used in an optimization procedure to find new mappings.