Performance bounds for convolutional codes of Rician fading channels

Convolutional codes coupled with Viterbi decoding provide an effective system for reliable communication on additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels using binary phase shifted keying (BPSK). In practical situations the channel is more complicated, often with amplitude and phase fading. For Rician fading channels with independent amplitude and phase fading, asymptotically tight upper and lower bounds on the bit error probability are derived for a convolutional code with three different types of Viterbi decoders: the decoder for an AWGN channel, the optimum invariant decoder which does not track the amplitude fading and the decoder which makes perfect amplitude measurements. These bounds are derived for channels with perfect and imperfect phase measurements.