A Group of Modulation Schemes for

Adaptive Modulation
Anh Tuan Le

Kiyomichi Araki

Graduate School of Science and Engineering

Tokyo Institute of Technology

Graduate School of Science and Engineering

Tokyo Institute of Technology

the more modulation schemes are, the better performance and

the more exibility we can have. Therefore we consider MQAM in which the number of signal points is not a power of 2
to ll these gaps. To be concrete, we have researched 6-QAM,
8-QAM, 12-QAM, 24-QAM, and 48-QAM.
This paper is organized as follows: In section 2, conventional QAM and its use in AMC are briey presented. Section
3 introduces QAM in which M = 3 2(p1) [2]. Proposed 8ary and 6-ary modulation schemes and their performances will
be introduced in section 4 and 5, respectively. The conclusion
comes at section 6.

AbstractAdaptive modulation increases the throughput of a

wireless network by adjusting the modulation scheme to the
channel status. To have more capacity and more exibility in
using adaptive modulation, our research attempts to nd a
group of modulation schemes, which includes M-QAM where
the number of signal points is not a power of 2, as well as NonSquared QAM (or APSK: Amplitude and Phase-shift keying), so
we can have n-bit modulation where n ranges fully from 1 to 6
including half-integer indices. Some recent research has shown
that the gap between QPSK and 16-QAM, 16-QAM and 32-QAM,
32-QAM and 64-QAM can be lled smoothly by introducing 12QAM, 24-QAM and 48-QAM. But the gap between QPSK (4QAM) and 12-QAM is still an open problem. In this paper we
insert 8-ary modulation schemes, and propose 6-ary modulation
schemes. Simulation results show that our proposed group can
ll smoothly the gap between QPSK and 12-QAM.
Index TermsQAM, PSK, Adaptive modulation, Triangle,
Minimum Euclidean distance, Constellation diagram, Bit mapping, AWGN.

II. B RIEF REVIEW OF A DAPTIVE M ODULATION

1-4244-2424-5/08/$20.00 2008 IEEE

864

8
7
64-QAM
pa
c

ity

6
Ca

32-QAM
-3

BER=10

2-

The radio frequency spectrum for wireless communication

services is limited while the demand for high-speed communications is extensive. Therefore spectral efciency is the
primary theme in next generation wireless data communication
systems. In wireless communications, the presence and mobility of reectors in the environment surrounding a transmitter
and receiver, as well as the mobility of transmitter and
receiver themselves create multiple varying paths which lead
to variation in received Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). Adaptive
modulation, a technique that sends more information in good
conditions (good SNR) and less information in bad conditions
(bad SNR) has been widely noticed to utilize the channel status
to get better system capacity in limited bandwidth.
Depending on the condition of the channel, the transmitter
could choose the appropriate modulation scheme. The most
popular modulation being used is M-QAM where M = 2n
(M = 4, 16, 32, 64, etc, n is number of bits per one symbol).
For M = 8, the popular modulation scheme is 8-PSK, but
it will be shown in section 2 that 8-PSK performance is
inferior to other conventional M-QAM. M is an exponential
function of signal point number which means that the number
of symbols becomes very large with a small n. Moreover when
n is integer, the number of modulation schemes is limited, and
we have no much choices for adaptive modulation. Excluding
8-PSK, there are big gaps between QPSK and 16-QAM, 16QAM and 32-QAM, 32-QAM and 64-QAM. It is obvious that

Capacity (bits/symbol/Hz)

I. I NTRODUCTION

Adaptive modulation can increase throughput of wireless

network by adjusting the modulation index to channel condition. It was shown in [1] that adaptive power and rate M-QAM
system can give a power gain of about 20 dB to non-adaptive
transmission for CDMA systems. Adaptive modulation has
become used especially for high capacity radio communication. For example, EDGE uses a rate adaptation algorithm that
adapts the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) between
GMSK and 8-PSK according to the quality of the channel,
and thus the bit rate increases about two times [3]. In HSDPA,
adaptation is performed by selecting between QPSK for noisy
channels and 16-QAM for better channels [4].

16-QAM
16-PSK

8-PSK
QPSK

2
1
0

10

12

14

16

18

20

Eb/No(dB)
Fig. 1.

Capacity of some conventional modulation schemes in AWGN

ICCS 2008

Fig. 1 shows the capacity of some conventional modulation

schemes in AWGN channel as well as the Shannon limit.
These capacities are derived as follows. Dene C as the
capacity of spectral efciency in bits/symbol. The Shannon
limit gives
Eb
= (2C 1)/C.
(1)
No
For two-dimensional signal sets with M points from [9] we
have:
 
u2 +v2
1
C = log2 M
d(u, v)e 2 dudv,
(2)
2
where

we have more utilization of channel change. Conventional

Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) technology uses
coding to solve this problem, such as 64-QAM combined
with Convolution Code which have a code-rate 3/4 [5]. But
using coding leads to the problem of complexity, especially
when introduced into the mobile terminal. In [2], Noda, et
al. studied a group of QAM with M = 3 2(p1) , using
two symbols to transfer 2p + 1 bits, meaning that we have
M-QAM with indices which are half-integers such as 2.5,
3.5c, and are obviously simpler than convolution codes. In
next the section we briey review the concepts of M-QAM
with M = 3 2(p1)

M
M
 Es [(x x )2 +(y y )2 )]
1 
i
j
log2
e N0 i j

d(u, v) =
M i=0
j=0


e

Es
2N
0

[u(xi xj )+v(yi yj )]

III. M-QAM WITH M = 3 2(p1)

3[bit]

2p+1[bit]

(3)
S/P
Convert

where Eb is average energy per bit, Es is average energy per

symbol (Es = log2 M Eb ), and N0 is the noise power.
(xi , yi ) are coordinates of points i-th in M point set.
For M-PSK we have
  2i
 2i

, cos
,
(4)
(xi , yi ) = sin
M
M
and d(u, v) can be expressed in a simpler form as:

2[ternary]
B/T
Convert

2(p-3)[bit]

}
4[bit]

}
Fig. 2.

T1,2

Symbol1
M
U
X

P1,2

M-QAM
Mod. Symbol2

Q1,2

Conguration of M-QAM (M=3 2(p1) ) modulator [2]

Conguration of M-QAM (M=32(p1)) is shown in Fig. 2.

In this modulation scheme, 2p + 1 bits are transmitted using
Es
2i
4 Es sin2 ( i
2N
[u(1cos 2i
M )
M )+vsin M ]
0
d(u, v) = log2 M
e N0
. two symbols. The principle of mapping is as follows. The
i=0
3 2(p1) signal is divided into 2 2(p1) and 1 2(p1)
(5)
subsets named as rst and second subsets, respectively. When
In Fig. 1 we also plot black points and white points the rst transmitted symbol is selected from the rst subset, the
to express the required Eb /N0 with BER=103 for each second symbol will be selected from the full set of 3 2(p1)
modulation scheme. If system does not require high accuracy signal points. If the rst symbol is selected from the second
(example: voice transmission), we can assume that the target subset, the second symbol will be selected from the rst subset.
BER is 103 , and then we can have a rough adaptation such Consequently, the total combination is
as below:
2 2(p1) 3 2(p1) + 2(p1) 2 2(p1) = 2(2p+1) , (6)
1) If Eb /N0 15dB using 64-QAM.
2) If 12.5dB Eb /N0 <15dB using 32-QAM.
meaning that 2p + 1 bits of binary information can be trans3) If 10dB Eb /N0 <12.5dB using 16-QAM.
mitted with two symbols.
4) If Eb /N0 <10dB using QPSK.
TABLE I
And we can easily notice that if we take the points for
M-QAM (M=3 2(p1) ) BIT MAPPING [2]
3
BER=10 for 64-QAM, 32-QAM, 16-QAM, QPSK (which
we call conventional QAM group) we can have a smooth curve
b6 b5
b 2 b 1 b 0 T1 T2
(b2p ,)
(,b ) P
P1
Q1
7
that has a similar incline with the Shannon limit. It can also be
0
(0,0)
0
(0,0,0)
0
(0,0,0)
(0,0)
(0,0,0)
seen that the point for 8-PSK is below this curve, or in another
1
1
1
(0,0,1)
(0,1)
(0,0,1)
(0,0,1)
(0,1)
words, performance of 8-PSK is worse than the conventional
QAM group.
2
2
(0,2)
(0,1,1)
2
(1,1)
(0,1,1)
(0,1,0)
Typically, adaptive modulation is used by adjusting the
3
(1,0)
3
(1,0)
(0,1,0)
3
(1,1,0)
(0,1,0)
modulation index; however, these modulation indices are
b6 b5
Q1

(1,1,1)
(1,1)

discrete and cannot present the real channel condition. For

(0,0)
0
(0,1,1)

(1,2)
example the channel condition maybe bad for 32-QAM, but
is too good for 16-QAM, in this case, it is good if we have
1
(0,1)
(1,0,0)
(2,0)

an intermediate modulation scheme which lies between 32

(1,1)
(2,1)
2
(1,0,1)
QAM and 16-QAM, meaning that the modulation index is 4.5.
p-3
p-3
Not avail. (2,2)
3
(1,0,0) 2 -1 (1,0,0) 2 -1 (1,0)
Obviously, if there are more intermediate modulation schemes
M


865

0
10

Bit mapping for this kind of M-QAM is briey reviewed

as follows [2]. A 2p + 1 bit signal (b2p , ..., b1 , b0 ) is divided
into ve groups and encoded as (T1 , T2 ), Q1 , Q2 , P1 , P2 as
shown in table I. Specically, the ternary code (T1 , T2 ) of the
two symbols is determined with the rst three bits (b2 , b1 , b0 ).
Next, the two independent quaternary codes Q1 , Q2 are determined with two bit pairs (four bits total), where each pair
represents the 2-D quadrant. Finally, if any remain, the two
independent (p 3)-ary codes P1 , P2 are determined with the
two p 3 bits (2 (p 3) total) (when p > 3). Q1 , Q2 and
P1 , P2 are Gray-coded independently. p = 2 (meaning 6-ary)
was not mentioned in [2], and here we propose 6-QAM by
reducing the assigned bit for Q1 , Q2 to two bits, which each
bit represent the left or the right of 2-D plane.
T=2

T=2

Q=1

T=0

T=0

Q=0

T=2

T=1

T=1

T=2

T=2

T=1

T=1

T=2

T=0

T=0

64-QAM

-1
10

48-QAM

-2
10

32-QAM
24-QAM

BER

-3
10

QPSK

-4
10

6-QAM

-5
10

12-QAM

-6
10

8-PSK

-7
10

16-QAM

-8
10
2

10

12

14

16

18

20

Eb/No(dB)

Fig. 4.

BER performance of 6-QAM, 12-QAM, 24-QAM and 48-QAM

T=0

T=0

Q=1

cit

Q=3

12-QAM
Q=0

(2,1) (2,1)

(1,1) (0,1) (0,1) (1,1)

(2,0) (1,0) (0,0) (0,0) (1,0) (2,0)

2-

Ca

Q=2

6-QAM

pa

T=1
Q=0

T=1

Capacity (bits/symbol/Hz)

Q=1

64-QAM

6
48-QAM

32-QAM
24-QAM
16-QAM

4
12-QAM

8-PSK

3
6-QAM

QPSK

(2,0) (1,0) (0,0) (0,0) (1,0) (2,0)

(1,1) (0,1) (0,1) (1,1)

Q=2

(2,1) (2,1)

24-QAM

Fig. 3.

BER=10 -6

BER=10 -3

10

12

14

16

18

20

Eb/No(dB)
Q=3

(T,P)

Fig. 5.
schemes

48-QAM

Transmission efciency versus Eb /N0 for various modulation

6-QAM, 12-QAM, 24-QAM, and 48-QAM constellation diagrams

Fig. 3 shows the constellation points of 6-QAM, 12-QAM,

24-QAM and 48-QAM. The rst subset and the second subset
are distinguished by white points and black points. From the
bit mapping rules described above, we can see that the second
subset points are selected with less probability than the points
in the st subset. Therefore, to increase average power of all
points, we choose points with higher amplitude for the second
subset.
We take an example for bit mapping in 24-QAM case, where
there are nine bits per two symbols. Assume that the input 9bit sequence is (0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1), then b8 = 0, b7 = 1,
(b6 , b5 ) = (1, 0), (b4 , b3 ) = (0, 1), and (b2 , b1 , b0 ) = (1, 1, 1).
From table I we have P1 = 0, P2 = 1, Q1 = 3, Q2 = 1,
T1 = 1, and T2 = 1. For the rst symbol, with Q1 = 3, the
symbol will be among 12 points in the lower-right quadrant,
and with (T1 , P1 ) = (1, 0) we nd that it is the gray point.
Applying the same procedures, we nd that the second symbol
will be the cross point in the upper-left quadrant.

BER performance results of 6-QAM, 12-QAM, 24-QAM

and 48-QAM in the AWGN channel are shown in Fig. 4.
For comparison, we also plot the performances of QPSK,
8-PSK, 16-QAM, 32-QAM and 64-QAM on Fig. 4. It is
worthy of note that compared to 8-PSK, 12-QAM has a
higher transmission efciency (3.5 bits/symbol) and a 0.5
dB gain at the required Eb /N0 where BER=106 . 6-QAM
has a transmission efciency and a BER performance falling
between QPSK and 12-QAM. 24-QAM has a transmission
efciency and a BER performance falling between 16-QAM
and 32-QAM. 48-QAM has a transmission efciency and BER
performance falling between 32-QAM and 64-QAM.
Fig. 5 shows the transmission efciency (bits/symbol) versus Eb /N0 for various modulation schemes. The required
Eb /N0 at BER=103 and 106 are plotted as circular points
and square points, respectively. With the introduction of MQAM (where M = 3 2(p1) ) as described, it can be easily
seen that that their intermediate properties match on the same
curve with conventional modulation systems (where M = 2n

866

10-0

). But we can see that there still remains a gap between

12-QAM and QPSK, because 8-PSK performance is inferior
and cannot belong to this group. The 6-QAM performance
is also inferior to other modulation schemes when compared
with the curve between 12-QAM and QPSK. In the next two
sections we will study other 8-ary modulation schemes and
compare them with 8-PSK, other 6-ary modulation schemes
and compare them with 6-QAM.

10-1
10-2

BER

10-4

8-Triangle
10-6

It is well-known that performance of a modulation scheme

depends mostly on the minimum Euclidean distance between
two points of the constellation points [6], [7]. The reason for
bad performance of 8-PSK is because of its constellation. As
shown on Fig. 6 these eight points are on a circle where the
space in the middle is wasteful. In our research, we consider
three other types of 8-ary modulation which we call 8-Star
[6], 8-QAM [8] and 8-Triangle to verify if their performance
is better than 8-PSK, and if they can t well in the curve of
M-QAM.

10-7

100

110
010

000

011

101

111

000

010

101

100

110

011

111

001

8-QAM

8-Star
101

110

100

000

001

100

000

110

001

010

010

111

011

111

101

011

8-PSK

Fig. 6.

8-Triangle

8-ary signal constellation diagrams

The constellation point and mapping of 8-Star, 8-QAM and

8-Triangle are shown in Fig. 6. For 8-PSK, we can map the bits
so that adjacent symbols will have only 1 bit difference. But in
other modulation schemes it is impossible. For 8-Star as well
as 8-Triangle, we have three symbols that form an equilateral
triangle, and there must be two adjacent symbols among them
that have more than one different bit. For 8-QAM, we have
two central symbols, each symbol has four adjacent symbols,
and we have only three bits, so there must be two pairs of two
adjacent symbols which have more than 1 different bit.
If the average power of all symbols is standardized to unit
then we can easily derived the minimum Euclidean distance
between twp points of 8-Star, 8-QAM and 8-Triangle is
2
= 0.9194, 25
= 0.8944, 24.5
= 0.9428 respectively,
3+ 3

while for 8-PSK it is 2 sin(/8) = 0.7654. The minimum

Euclidean distance determines the BER performance of the

8-QAM

10-5

IV. 8- ARY MODULATION

001

8-PSK

10-3

10-8
2

8-Star

10

12

14

16

Eb/No(dB)
Fig. 7.

BER performance of 8-ary modulation schemes

system so we can expect that performances of these three

modulation types are better than 8-PSK.
Fig. 7 shows the performance of 8-Star, 8-QAM, and 8Triangle as well as 8-PSK. From this gure, we see 8-Star, 8QAM, and 8-Triangle have better performance than 8-PSK as
expected; improving by about 1.2 dB at BER=103 and about
1.7 dB at BER=106 . We can also see that at high Eb /N0 , 8Triangle outperforms 8-Star, and 8-Star out performs 8-QAM.
This characteristic reects the minimum Euclidean distances
of these modulation schemes.
The BER of an M-ary modulation scheme can be approximated as below [6]:

d

min
PBER (Eb /N0 ) erf c
(7)
n Eb /N0
2
where dmin is the minimum Euclidean distance when average
power is unit. n is the number of bits per symbol (modulation
index), if M is a power of 2 then n = log2 M . And is a
coefcient depending on modulation scheme.
From simulation results, we can approximate the BER for
8-Star, 8-QAM, and 8-Triangle as below:

 3 E /N

1
b
0

PBER8Star (Eb /N0 )

, (8)
= erf c
2
3+ 3

 3 E /N

3
b
0
,
(9)
PBER8QAM (Eb /N0 )
= erf c
8
5

 3 E /N

5
b
0
PBER8T riangle (Eb /N0 )
. (10)
= erf c
8
4.5
Because the BER performance curves of these modulation
schemes are very close to each other, we dont plot the
approximation results together with the simulation results. But
we have conrmed that these approximations closely match
with the simulation results.
The BER approximation for 8-PSK is derived in [10]

1

PBER8P SK (Eb /N0 )

3 Eb /N0 sin . (11)
= erf c
3
8

867

-1
10

V. 6- ARY MODULATION
In the previous section we have discussed 8-ary modulations
and their performances (which will be shown in Fig. 11) match
with other conventional modulation schemes. Therefore the
remaining problem is 6-ary modulation. Besides 6-QAM, we
can consider 6-PSK and 6-Triangle as shown in Fig. 8.

-2
10

6-PSK

-3
10

6-QAM
BER

-4
10

6-Triangle2

-5
10

6-Triangle1

-6
10
-7
10
-8
10
3

6-PSK

10

11

12

13

Eb/No(dB)

6-QAM
Fig. 9.

BER performance of 6-PSK, 6-QAM, 6-Triangle1, 6-Triangle2

a
b

6-Triangle1
Fig. 8.

6-Triangle2

6-ary Signal Constellation Diagrams

The difference between 6-Triangle1 and 6-Triangle2 is how

we divide these six points into two subsets (four points and
two points). From the description in section 3, it is clear
that two points in the second subset are used less frequently
than four points in the rst subset, meaning that if we chose
two points with higher amplitude for the second subset then
the average power of all will be lower. In other words, with
the same average power, the minimum Euclidean distance
of 6-Triangle2 will be bigger than 6-Triangle1, therefore
performance of 6-Triangle2 can be expected to be better than
6-Triangle1.
The minimum Euclidean distance of 6-Triangle2 can be
derived as follow. These 6 points can be divided into two
groups (called inner group and outer group); each group has
three points with the same amplitude. Let these amplitudes be
a for outer group and b for inner group, it is easily to prove
that

a = 2b, and the minimum Euclidean distance is b 3. If the

rst symbol is selected in the rst subset (four white points)
and the second symbol will be selected among the full six
points. Then we have 24 combinations, among them there are
eight combinations that any black point is selected. If the rst
symbol is selected in the second subset (two black points) and
the second symbol will be selected among four white points,
then we have eight combinations where any black point is
selected. Therefore, over two symbols, the probability that we
selected any black point is (8+8)/32 = 1/2. Considering that
this probability is for two symbols, we have two black points,
and there will be no probability that two black points become
selected as two symbols. Thus for one symbol and for a xed
black point the probability for this black point is 1/8. Then, the
selected probability for a white point is (121/8)/4 = 3/16.
Therefore, the average power of all symbols become
1/8(a2 + a2 ) + 3/16(b2 + b2 + b2 + a2 ) = 37/16 b2 . (12)

If the average power of all symbols 

is unit then the
minimum
Euclidean distance of 6-Triangle2 is 16/37 3 = 1.139.
Using the same approach we can deriver the
minimum Euclidean
distance
of
6-QAM
and
6-Triangle1
is
8/7
= 1.0690


and 6/5 = 1.0954, respectively. The minimum Euclidean

distance of 6-PSK does not depend how we divide these six
points, and should be 2 sin(/6) = 1.
Fig. 9 shows the BER performance of 6-PSK, 6-QAM, 6Triangle1, 6-Triangle2 in an AWGN channel. It can be seen
that 6-Triangle2 has best performance. While the performance
of 6-Triangle1 is a little better than 6-QAM, this matches
with very little difference in minimum Euclidean distance to
6-Triangle1 (1.0954) and 6-QAM (1.0690).
From simulation results, we can roughly approximate BER
for 6-PSK, 6-QAM, 6-Triangle1 and 6-Triangle2 as below:

 5 E /N

b
0

PBER6P SK (Eb /N0 ) = erf c

,
(13)
8

 5 E /N

5
b
0
PBER6QAM (Eb /N0 )
, (14)
= erf c
8
7

 3 E /N

b
0
3 erf c
PBER6T riangle1 (Eb /N0 ) =
, (15)
5
4

 30 E /N

1
b
0
PBER6T riangle2 (Eb /N0 )
.
= erf c
5
37
(16)
We also have conrmed that these approximations closely
match the simulation results.
Fig. 10 shows throughput of various modulation schemes
in AWGN channel versus SNR. From the intersections of
these throughput lines, we can decide threshold value for
switching between modulation schemes when SNR changes.
For example, if SNR is between 20dB and 22dB then we use
48QAM. Fig. 10 also shows the throughput of adaptive modulation in Rayleigh fading channel. The conventional adaptive modulation chooses modulation schemes among {QPSK,
8PSK, 16QAM, 32QAM, 64QAM}; and the proposed adaptive modulation chooses modulation schemes among {QPSK,
6-Triangle2, 8QAM, 12QAM, 16QAM, 24QAM, 32QAM,

868

that has a similar incline with the Shannon limit. The gap
between the Shannon limit and the curve for BER=103 is
around 4.7dB, for BER=106 is around 8.5dB.

64-QAM

32-QAM
24-QAM

16-QAM
12-QAM

8-PSK
6-Triangle2

8-QAM

QPSK

Adaptive Modulation
(Conventional )

0
0

10

15
20
Average SNR (dB)

25

30

Fig. 10. Throughput of various modulation schemes in AWGN as well as

of adaptive modulation in Rayleigh fading channel

64-QAM

6
48-QAM

32-QAM
24-QAM
16-QAM

4
12-QAM

8-QAM

3
6-Triangle2

Q-PSK

2
BER=10 -3

BER=10 -6

48QAM, 64QAM}. We can see that proposed adaptive modulation scheme improve about 0.7dB over the conventional
scheme.

Fig. 11.

In this study, we have studied M-QAM (which M is

3 2(p1)), four 8-ary modulation schemes (8-PSK, 8-Star, 8QAM, and 8-Triangle), researched 6-ary modulation schemes
(6-PSK, 6-QAM, 6-Triangle1, 6-Triangle2) and proposed a
group of modulation schemes with a modulation index (bits
per symbol) range from 2 bits/symbol to 6 bits/symbol (if we
count to 64-QAM) including half-integer index (2.5, 3.5, 4.5,
5.5) without any complex coding. We can see that at low modulation indices, if we pay attention to design the constellation
diagrams, it can improve much the BER performance over the
conventional constellation diagrams.
TABLE II
TABLE FOR PROPOSED GROUP OF MODULATION SCHEMES

10

12

14

16

18

20

Eb/No(dB)

VI. C ONCLUSIONS AND F UTURE WORKS

Modulation Index
(bits/symbol)
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
5.5
6

2D

Ca
pa
c

ity

Capacity (bits/symbol/Hz)

Throughput (bits/symbol)

48-QAM
Adaptive Modulation
(Proposed )

Performance of proposed Modulation Schemes group

A. Future works
Obviously, if there are more modulation schemes we have
more utilization of channel change, then the characteristics of
the proposed group can be very useful in Adaptive Modulation
Coding.
Our future works also include comparing the proposed
group with the conventional Adaptive Modulation Coding
group (which uses coding to realize half-integer indices),
evaluating the impacts of half-integer indices on improving
throughput performance in mobile environments, and introducing non-linear power ampliers to evaluate AMC in more
realistic environments.
R EFERENCES

Modulation Scheme
QPSK (4QAM)
6-Triangle2
8-QAM (or 8-Star, 8-Triangle)
12-QAM
16-QAM
24-QAM
32-QAM
48-QAM
64-QAM

And we propose a group of modulation schemes as shown

in Table II. Fig. 11 shows the performance of modulation
schemes group referred in Table II. The circles express required Eb /N0 for BER=103 and the squares express required
Eb /N0 for BER=106 . From this gure we can see that, 6Triangle2, 8-QAM, 12-QAM, 24-QAM, 48-QAM match well
with conventional modulation schemes (QPSK, 16-QAM, 32QAM, 64-QAM). All of them create a virtual smooth curve

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