Performance of convolutional coding with symbol erasure for QPSK frequency-selective fading channels

Abstract

In this paper, we study the performance of convolutional coding using an error-and-erasure correction Viterbi decoder for π/4-shift QDPSK mobile radio transmission. The receiver uses received signal envelope as channel state information to erase unreliable symbols instead of making explicit decision before decoding. The performance study is carried out over frequency-selective fading channel with additive white Gaussian noise, co-channel interference and propagation delay spread. The results show that decoding with symbol erasure can significantly improve the system transmission performance compared to decoding without symbol erasure.