A BICM Approach to Type-II Hybrid ARQ

We propose a low complexity H-ARQ utilizing bit interleaved coded modulation (BICM). Our aim is to improve the reliability and bandwidth efficiency of wireless communications using high rate H-ARQ enabled by the proposed BICM option. This type-II hybrid ARQ generates incremental redundancy and diversity by varying the bit-to-symbol mapping during retransmission without relying on FEC design. The joint detection at the receiver through maximum likelihood demapping before error correction is simple and effective. Using identical the interleaver and convolutional FEC encoder, this scheme is inexpensive and is largely independent of the outer code selection