TCM without constellation expansion penalty

We present a family of constant-amplitude constellations of even dimensions 8 and above. These constellations allow trellis coded modulation to be implemented without the usual penalty paid for constellation expansion. The new constellations are generated by concatenating either n QPSK points or n QPSK points rotated by 45 degrees, for any n > 4. Our constellations double the number of points available for transmission without decreasing the distance between points and without increasing the average or peak energies, introducing asymmetry, or increasing the modulation level. Effective gains of 2.65 dB with minimum complexity through 6.42 dB with moderate complexity are demonstrated using the 8D constellation.