Self-concatenated codes with self-iterative decoding for power and bandwidth efficiency

A self-concatenated code with interleavers is a concatenated coded scheme based on only one recursive convolutional code. An upper bound on bit error probability, averaged over all possible interleavers, using maximum-likelihood decoding is obtained. Design rules for the single convolutional code, that maximize the interleavers gain and the effective free distance are presented. Design rules are extended to nonbinary modulation for the design of self-concatenated trellis coded modulation. A low-complexity self-iterative decoding algorithm for the self-concatenated code for binary and nonbinary modulation is proposed