Multilevel Coding over Eisenstein Integers with Ternary Codes

This work introduces new signal constellations based on Eisenstein integers, i.e., the hexagonal lattice. These sets of Eisenstein integers have a cardinality which is an integer power of three. They are proposed as signal constellations for representation in the equivalent complex baseband model, especially for applications like physical-layer network coding or MIMO transmission where the constellation is required to be a subset of a lattice. It is shown that these constellations form additive groups where the addition over the complex plane corresponds to the addition with carry over ternary Galois fields. A ternary set partitioning is derived that enables multilevel coding based on ternary error-correcting codes. In the subsets, this partitioning achieves a gain of 4.77 dB, which results from an increased minimum squared Euclidean distance of the signal points. Furthermore, the constellation-constrained capacities over the AWGN channel and the related level capacities in case of ternary multilevel coding are investigated. Simulation results for multilevel coding based on ternary LDPC codes are presented which show that a performance close to the constellation-constrained capacities can be achieved.