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In digital communications shaping codes are a method of encoding that changes the distribution of signals to improve efficiency.
Typical digital communication systems uses M-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) to communicate through an analog channel (specifically a communication channel with Gaussian noise). For Higher bit rates (M) the minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) required by a QAM system with Error Correcting Codes is about 1.53 dB higher than minimum SNR required by a Gaussian source(>30% more transmitter power) as given in the Shannon–Hartley theorem
where
This 1.53 dB difference is called the shaping gap. Typically, a digital system will encode bits with uniform probability to maximize the entropy. Shaping codes act as a buffer between digital sources and the modulator. They will receive uniformly distributed data and convert it to a Gaussian-like distribution before presenting it to the modulator. Shaping codes are helpful in reducing transmit power and thus reducing the cost of the power amplifier and the interference caused to other users in the vicinity.
Some of the methods used for shaping are described in the trellis shaping paper by Dr. G. D. Forney Jr. [1]
Shell mapping [2] is used in V.34 modems to get a shaping gain of .8 dB. All the shaping schemes in the literature try to reduce the transmitted signal power. In the future, this may find application in wireless networks if the interference from other nodes becomes the major issue.
