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A new multilevel coding method that uses several error-correcting codes is proposed. The transmission symbols are constructed by combining symbols of codewords of these codes. Usually, these codes are binary error-correcting codes and have different error-correcting capabilities. For various channels, efficient systems can be obtained by choosing these codes appropriately. Encoding and decoding procedures for this method are relatively simple compared with those of other multilevel coding methods. In addition, this method makes effective use of soft-decisions to improve the performance of decoding. The decoding error probability is analyzed for multiphase modulation, and numerical comparisons to other multilevel coding systems are made. When equally complex systems are compared, the new system is superior to other multilevel coding systems.
Imai et al. (1977) studied this question.