16-QAM BICM-ID in fading channels with imperfect channel state information

We analyze the impact of imperfect channel state information (CSI) on the performance of bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) over fading channels. We develop a general, accurate and efficient theoretical error-free feedback bound (EF bound) to analyze the asymptotic bit-error rate (BER) of BICM-ID with imperfect CSI, and predict the BER floor due to channel estimation error. The convergence to the EF bound and the accuracy of the BER floor prediction are verified by simulation with various sets of code and channel parameters. These results are canonical, in that they apply to a variety of system configurations. Pilot symbol assisted modulation is used as a particular example for Rayleigh-fading channels.