An Efficient Algorithm to Calculate BICM Capacity

Authors

G. Böcherer, F. Altenbach, A. Alvarado, S. Corroy, R. Mathar,

Abstract

        Bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) is a practical approach for reliable communication over the AWGN channel in the bandwidth limited regime. For a signal point constellation with 2^m points, BICM labels the signal points with bit strings of length m and then treats these m bits separately both at the transmitter and the receiver. BICM capacity is defined as the maximum of a certain achievable rate. Maximation has to be done over the probability mass functions (pmf) of the bits. This is a non-convex optimization problem. So far, the optimal bit pmfs were determined via exhaustive search, which is of exponential complexity in m. In this work, an algorithm called bit-alternating convex concave method (BACM) is developed. This algorithm calculates BICM capacity with a complexity that scales approximately as m³. The algorithm iteratively applies convex optimization techniques. BACM is used to calculate BICM capacity of 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64-PAM in AWGN.
For PAM constellations with more than 8 points, the presented values are the first results known in the literature.

BibTEX Reference Entry 

@inproceedings{BoAlAlCoMa12,
	author = {Georg B{\"o}cherer and Fabian Altenbach and Alex Alvarado and Steven Corroy and Rudolf Mathar},
	title = "An Efficient Algorithm to Calculate {BICM} Capacity",
	pages = "314-318",
	booktitle = "International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT 2012)",
	address = {Cambridge, USA},
	month = Jul,
	year = 2012,
	hsb = hsb999910270304 ,
	}

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