On block-coded modulation with interblock memory

Block-coded modulation with interblock memory (BCMIM) is a variation of block-coded modulation (BCM) which is designed for multilevel coding. By providing interblock memory between adjacent blocks, the coding rate of a BCMIM scheme can be increased without decreasing the minimum squared Euclidean distance (MSED) as compared to the original BCM. In an early version of BCMIM, interblock coding is provided only between the first two coding levels of adjacent blocks. In this paper, we design BCMIM with a more general form for which interblock coding can be introduced among many coding levels. In this way, we can further increase the coding rate of BCMIM without decreasing the MSED. We provide many examples to show the advantages of BCMIM with the general form. Most of the examples are designed based on multidimensional signal sets, since a multidimensional signal set can provide more coding levels than a two-dimensional (2-D) signal set.