16-QAM and trellis-coded 16-QAM on nonlinear channels

The use of 16-QAM on bandlimited nonlinear satellite channels, in uncoded and trellis-coded form, for bandwidth efficient modulation (ideally 4 bps/Hz) is discussed. To avoid severe degradation due to AM/AM and AM/PM distortion, or to avoid the need for large back-off, predistorting the 16-QAM constellation at the modulator is considered. Performance for varying back-off settings for uncoded and coded 16-QAM is simulated, and it is found that the four-state trellis code has a coding gain of about 8 dB, larger than expected based on linear channel analysis, while the 16-state code gains only marginally beyond this.