On multidimensional coded modulations having uniform error property for generalized decoding and flat-fading channels

We consider the problem of uniform error property (UEP) for a coded modulation with constant energy multidimensional symbols, transmitted over the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) or fading channels and received by a broad class of decoders. This class includes coherent, partially coherent, double differential, and noncoherent decoders, decoders designed for fading channels, decoders using one or multiple-symbol observations, and many more. These decoders are described as special cases of a general decoder model. This decoder operates by maximizing an arbitrary likelihood function that its arguments are front-end correlator (matched-filter) outputs. A group code structure that guarantees UEP is developed by using the theory of geometrically uniform codes and applying it to the general decoder. These codes are defined over groups (commonly nonbinary) with isometric mapping to channel symbols. We show the code construction for the specific case of Lth-dimensional M-ary phase-shift keying (MPSK). An additional interesting property of these general uniform error codes is related to the case of noncoherent decoding. We show that when using codes of this family, if a code is noncoherently catastrophic, then it is also rotationally invariant. Then, the use of precoding of the input such that the code becomes rotationally transparent will also make it noncatastrophic.