Optimum code rates for noncoherent MFSK with errors and erasures decoding over Rayleigh fading channels

The capacity and cutoff rate of M-ary frequency shift keying (FSK) modulation with noncoherent hard-decisions reception and erasure of unreliable symbols using Viterbi (1982) ratio threshold test are calculated for Rayleigh fading channels. Optimum code rates and erasure threshold values are found to minimize the required signal-to-noise ratio for reliable communication. In addition, optimum Reed Solomon codes are found to minimize the signal-to-noise ratio necessary to achieve a code word error probability of 10/sup -5/.