U-UV Coding for Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation

U-UV codes were recently proposed as a competent short-to-medium length coding scheme. With well designed component codes, U-UV codes can outperform similar rate cyclic redundancy check (CRC)-polar codes with the successive cancellation (SC) and the SC list (SCL) decoding. In order to improve the coded transmission spectral efficiency, this paper proposes the bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) scheme with U-UV codes as the channel codes. A bit interleaver structure is proposed to facilitate the component code rate allocation based on the polarized subchannel capacities. Under the BICM paradigm, the component code rates can be allocated by first estimating the modulation subchannel capacities, then adjusting based on the finite length rates and the equal error probability rule. Theoretical performance bounds and their approximations on decoding error rates are further analyzed. It provides the theoretical benchmarks for our simulations and guides the optimized design of the coded modulation scheme. Finally, simulation results of the U-UV coded BICM scheme are provided to demonstrate its error-correction competency. It can outperform the relevant bit-interleaved polar coded modulation (BIPCM) scheme.