In this paper, we propose a practical adaptive coding modulation scheme to approach the capacity of free-space optical (FSO) channels with intensity modulation/direct detection based on probabilistic shaping. The encoder efficiently adapts the transmission rate to the signal-to-noise ratio, accounting for the fading induced by the atmospheric turbulence. The transponder can support an arbitrarily large number of transmission modes using a low complexity channel encoder with a small set of supported rates. Hence, it can provide a solution for FSO backhauling in terrestrial and satellite communication systems to achieve higher spectral efficiency. We propose two algorithms to determine the capacity and capacity-achieving distribution of the scheme with unipolar M-ary pulse amplitude modulation (M-PAM) signaling. Then, the signal constellation is probabilistically shaped according to the optimal distribution, and the shaped signal is channel encoded by an efficient binary forward error correction scheme. Extensive numerical results and simulations are provided to evaluate the performance. The proposed scheme yields a rate close to the tightest lower bound on the capacity of FSO channels. For instance, the coded modulator operates within 0.2 dB from the M-PAM capacity, and it outperforms uniform signaling with more than 1.7 dB, at a transmission rate of 3 bits per channel use.
An LDPC coded modulation scheme with probabilistic shaping, optimized interleavers and noniterative demapping is proposed. Full-field simulations show an increase in transmission distance by 8% compared to uniformly distributed input.
The performance of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) with bit shaping (i.e., non-equiprobable bit probabilities in the underlying binary code) is studied. For the Gaussian channel, the rates achievable with BICM and bit shaping are practically identical to those of coded modulation or multilevel coding. This identity holds for the whole range of values of signal-to-noise ratio. Moreover, the random coding error exponent of BICM significantly exceeds that of multilevel coding and is very close to that of coded modulation.
An energy-efficient approach is presented for shaping a bit-interleaved low-density parity-check (LDPC) coded amplitude phase-shift keying (APSK) system. A subset of the interleaved bits output by a binary LDPC encoder are passed through a nonlinear shaping encoder whose output is more likely to be a zero than a one. The "shaping" bits are used to select from among a plurality of subconstellations, while the unshaped bits are used to select the symbol within the subconstellation. Because the shaping bits are biased, symbols from lower-energy subconstellations are selected more frequently than …
A multilevel coded modulation scheme is studied that uses solely binary polar codes and Honda-Yamamoto probabilistic shaping. The scheme is shown to achieve the capacity of discrete memoryless channels with input alphabets of cardinality a power of two. The performance of finite-length implementations is compared to polar-coded probabilistic amplitude shaping and constant composition distribution matching.
The joint design of input constellation and low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes to approach the symmetric capacity of the two-user Gaussian multiple access channel is studied. More specifically, multilevel coding is employed at each user to construct a high-order input constellation and the constellations of the users are jointly designed so as to maximize the multiuser shaping gain. At the receiver, each layer of the multilevel coding is jointly decoded among users, while successive cancellation is employed across layers. The LDPC code employed by each user in each layer is designed using E…
On the one hand, sign-bit shaping is a popular shaping scheme where the conditional probability of the sign bit is made non-equiprobable. On the other hand, probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) is a popular coding scheme, to combine shaping and a bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM), where the sign bit should not be involved in the shaping. Indeed, with the PAS scheme the sign bit is the parity bit, i.e., the output of the systematic error-correcting code. As a result, sign-bit shaping has been used with multilevel coded modulations rather than BICM. In this paper, we show that with minor …
We introduce a trainable coded modulation scheme that enables joint optimization of the bit-wise mutual information (BMI) through probabilistic shaping, geometric shaping, bit labeling, and demapping for a specific channel model and for a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Compared to probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS), the proposed approach is not restricted to symmetric probability distributions, can be optimized for any channel model, and works with any code rate $k/m$, $m$ being the number of bits per channel use and $k$ an integer within the range from $1$ to $m-1$. The propo…
We consider probabilistic shaping to maximize the achievable information rate of coded modulation (CM) with hard decision decoding. The proposed scheme using binary staircase codes outperforms its uniform CM counterpart by more than 1.3 dB for 64-QAM and 5 bits/symbol.
In this paper, we study amplitude shaping schemes for the probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) framework as well as algorithms for constant-composition distribution matching (CCDM). Huffman-coded sphere shaping (HCSS) is discussed in detail, which internally uses Huffman coding to determine the composition to be used and relies on conventional CCDM algorithms for mapping and demapping. Numerical simulations show that HCSS closes the performance gap between distribution matching schemes and sphere shaping techniques such as enumerative sphere shaping (ESS). HCSS is based on an architecture tha…
A scheme is proposed that combines probabilistic signal shaping with bit-metric decoding. The transmitter generates symbols according to a distribution on the channel input alphabet. The symbols are labeled by bit strings. At the receiver, the channel output is decoded with respect to a bit-metric. An achievable rate is derived using random coding arguments. For the 8-ASK AWGN channel, numerical results show that at a spectral efficiency of 2 bits/s/Hz, the new scheme outperforms bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) without shaping and BICM with bit shaping (i Fabregas and Martinez, 2010) b…
A protograph-based low-density parity-check (LDPC) code design technique for bandwidth-efficient coded modulation is presented. The approach jointly optimizes the LDPC code node degrees and the mapping of the coded bits to the bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) bit-channels. For BICM with uniform input and for BICM with probabilistic shaping, binary-input symmetric-output surrogate channels are constructed and used for code design. The constructed codes perform as good as multi-edge type codes of Zhang and Kschischang (2013). For 64-ASK with probabilistic shaping, a blocklength 64800 code…
A pragmatic coded modulation system is presented that incorporates signal shaping and exploits the excellent performance and efficient high-speed decoding architecture of staircase codes. Reliable communication within 0.62 bits/s/Hz of the estimated capacity (per polarization) of a system with L=2000 km is provided by the proposed system, with an error floor below 1E-20. Also, it is shown that digital backpropagation increases the achievable spectral efficiencies---relative to linear equalization---by 0.55 to 0.75 bits/s/Hz per polarization.
The mutual information of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) systems, sometimes called the BICM capacity, is investigated at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), i.e., in the wideband regime. A new linear transform that depends on bits' probabilities is introduced. This transform is used to prove the asymptotical equivalence between certain BICM systems with uniform and nonuniform input distributions. Using known results for BICM systems with a uniform input distribution, we completely characterize the combinations of input alphabet, input distribution, and binary labeling that achieve the Sh…
This paper applies probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) to a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) aided trellis coded modulation (TCM) to achieve the short-blocklength random coding union (RCU) bound. In the transmitter, the equally likely message bits are first encoded by distribution matcher to generate amplitude symbols with the desired distribution. The binary representations of the distribution matcher outputs are then encoded by a CRC. Finally, the CRC-encoded bits are encoded and modulated by Ungerboeck's TCM scheme, which consists of a $\frac{k_0}{k_0+1}$ systematic tail-biting convolutional…
For a layered probabilistic shaping (PS) scheme with a general decoding metric, an achievable rate is derived using Gallager's error exponent approach and the concept of achievable code rates is introduced. Several instances for specific decoding metrics are discussed, including bit-metric decoding, interleaved coded modulation, and hard-decision decoding. It is shown that important previously known achievable rates can also be achieved by layered PS. A practical instance of layered PS is the recently proposed probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS).
Probabilistic Amplitude Shaping (PAS) is a coded-modulation scheme in which the encoder is a concatenation of a distribution matcher with a systematic Forward Error Correction (FEC) code. For reduced computational complexity the decoder can be chosen as a concatenation of a mismatched FEC decoder and dematcher. This work studies the theoretic limits of PAS. The classical joint source-channel coding (JSCC) setup is modified to include systematic FEC and the mismatched FEC decoder. At each step error exponents and achievable rates for the corresponding setup are derived.
A protograph-based low-density parity-check (LDPC) code design technique for bandwidth-efficient coded modulation is presented. The approach jointly optimizes the LDPC code node degrees and the mapping of the coded bits to the bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) bit-channels. For BICM with uniform input and for BICM with probabilistic shaping, binary-input symmetric-output surrogate channels for the code design are used. The constructed codes for uniform inputs perform as good as the multi-edge type codes of Zhang and Kschischang (2013). For 8-ASK and 64-ASK with probabilistic shaping, cod…
Coded modulation with probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) is considered for intensity modulation/direct detection channels with a transmitter peak-power constraint. PAS is used to map bits to a uniform PAM-6 distribution and outperforms PAM-8 for rates up to around 2.3 bits per channel use. PAM-6 with PAS also outperforms a cross-shaped QAM-32 constellation by up to 1 dB and 0.65 dB after bit-metric soft- and hard decoding, respectively. An alternative PAM-6 scheme based on a framed cross-shaped QAM-32 constellation is proposed that shows similar gains.
We present a novel autoencoder-based learning of joint geometric and probabilistic constellation shaping for coded-modulation systems. It can maximize either the mutual information (for symbol-metric decoding) or the generalized mutual information (for bit-metric decoding).
In this work, the design of robust, protograph-based low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes for rate-adaptive communication via probabilistic shaping is considered. Recently, probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) by Böcherer et al. has been introduced for capacity approaching and rate-adaptive communication with a bitwise-demapper and binary decoder. Previous work by the authors considered the optimization of protograph based LDPC codes for PAS and specific spectral efficiencies (SEs) to jointly optimize the LDPC code node degrees and the mapping of the coded bits to the bit-interleaved coded m…
We consider probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) as a means of increasing the spectral efficiency of fiber-optic communication systems. In contrast to previous works in the literature, we consider probabilistic shaping with hard decision decoding (HDD). In particular, we apply the PAS recently introduced by Böcherer \emph{et al.} to a coded modulation (CM) scheme with bit-wise HDD that uses a staircase code as the forward error correction code. We show that the CM scheme with PAS and staircase codes yields significant gains in spectral efficiency with respect to the baseline scheme using a st…
In this paper, probabilistic shaping is numerically and experimentally investigated for increasing the transmission reach of wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical communication system employing quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). An optimized probability mass function (PMF) of the QAM symbols is first found from a modified Blahut-Arimoto algorithm for the optical channel. A turbo coded bit interleaved coded modulation system is then applied, which relies on many-to-one labeling to achieve the desired PMF, thereby achieving shaping gain. Pilot symbols at rate at most 2% are used for …
Probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) is a coded modulation strategy in which constellation shaping and channel coding are combined. PAS has attracted considerable attention in both wireless and optical communications. Achievable information rates (AIRs) of PAS have been investigated in the literature using Gallager's error exponent approach. In particular, it has been shown that PAS achieves the capacity of the additive white Gaussian noise channel (Böcherer, 2018). In this work, we revisit the capacity-achieving property of PAS and derive AIRs using weak typicality. Our objective is to provi…
A new coded modulation scheme is proposed. At the transmitter, the concatenation of a distribution matcher and a systematic binary encoder performs probabilistic signal shaping and channel coding. At the receiver, the output of a bitwise demapper is fed to a binary decoder. No iterative demapping is performed. Rate adaption is achieved by adjusting the input distribution and the transmission power. The scheme is applied to bipolar amplitude shift keying (ASK) constellations with equidistant signal points and it is directly applicable to two-dimensional quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). Th…
Bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) has attracted considerable attention from the research community in the past three decades, because it can achieve desirable error performance with relatively low implementation complexity for a large number of communication and storage systems. By exploiting the iterative demapping and decoding (ID), the BICM is able to approach capacity limits of coded modulation over various channels. In recent years, protograph low-density parity-check (PLDPC) codes and their spatially-coupled (SC) variants have emerged to be a pragmatic forward-error-correction (FEC…
Constellation shaping is an energy-efficient strategy involving the transmission of lower-energy signals more frequently than higher-energy signals. Previous work has shown that shaping is particularly effective when used with coded amplitude phase-shift keying (APSK), a modulation that has been popularized recently due to its inclusion in the DVB-S2 standard. While shaped APSK can provide significant gains when used with standard off-the-shelf LDPC codes, such as the codes in the DVB-S2 standard, additional non-negligible gains can be achieved by optimizing the LDPC code with respect to the s…
Probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) is on track to become the de facto coded modulation standard for communication systems aiming to operate close to channel capacity at high transmission rates. The essential component of PAS that breeds this widespread interest is the amplitude shaping block, through which the channel input distribution is controlled. This block is responsible for converting bit strings into amplitude sequences with certain properties, e.g., fixed composition, limited energy, limited energy variation, etc. Recently, band-trellis enumerative sphere shaping (B-ESS) was introd…
The fundamental concepts and challenges of orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation have been reviewed in Part I of this three-part tutorial. In this second part, we provide an overview of the state-of-the-art transceiver designs for OTFS systems, with a particular focus on the cyclic prefix (CP) design, window design, pulse shaping, channel estimation, and signal detection. Furthermore, we analyze the performance of OTFS modulation, including the diversity gain and the achievable rate. Specifically, comparative simulations are presented to evaluate the error performance of different …
The minimum average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) per bit required for error-free transmission over a fading channel is derived, and is shown to be equal to that of the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, which is $-1.6$ dB. Discrete-time algorithms are presented for timing and carrier synchronization, as well as channel estimation, for turbo coded multiple input multiple output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) systems. Simulation results show that it is possible to achieve a bit error rate of $10^{-5}$ at an average SNR per bit of 5.5 dB, using two transmit and …
Lower bounds on mutual information (MI) of long-haul optical fiber systems for hard-decision and soft-decision decoding are studied. Ready-to-use expressions to calculate the MI are presented. Extensive numerical simulations are used to quantify how changes in the optical transmitter, receiver, and channel affect the achievable transmission rates of the system. Special emphasis is put to the use of different quadrature amplitude modulation formats, channel spacings, digital back-propagation schemes and probabilistic shaping. The advantages of using MI over the prevailing $Q$-factor as a figure…
