Channel coding for wireless communication via electromagnetic polarization

This paper investigates fundamental properties of polarization-based modulation for wireless communication - and in particular the application of channel coding techniques to such systems. After developing appropriate channel models, bounds on achievable rates are computed, and the performance of exemplary LDPC codes are simulated; this is done for both additive white Gaussian noise channels as well as channels subject to i.i.d. Rayleigh fading. A novel “on/off” modulation scheme is developed that adaptively changes the information-bearing polarization states based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the realized channel; this scheme is shown to significantly outperform fixed-constellation schemes as well as adaptive-constellation schemes employing equal energy signals.