Optimised multistage coded modulation design for Rayleigh fading channels

The aim of the paper is to optimise the asymptotic performance at high signal to noise ratio (SNR), and the choice of code parameters has been made accordingly. However, it is well known that this may not optimise performance at practical SNR. The paper presents a design technique to minimise the required SNR performance for a specific target bit error ratio (BER). It also describes a new simplified bounding technique for the BER of multilevel coded modulation (MCM) on a Rayleigh fading channel, which avoids the use of the Chernoff bounds