Symbol Error Probability of Hexagonal QAM

This letter studies the symbol error probability (SEP) of quadrature-amplitude modulation (QAM) signals constructed from the hexagonal lattice, known as hexagonal QAM or triangular QAM. In particular, we propose a simple and accurate approximation for the SEP of hexagonal QAM in additive white Gaussian noise. Simulation results show that the proposed approximation is very accurate for all the best-known QAM constellations constructed from the hexagonal lattice, including triangular QAM, for both high and low signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, the proposed approximation is suitable for the accurate estimation of the SEP of hexagonal QAM in slow-fading channels, such as Rayleigh fading channels.