Invariancies in punctured convolutional codes-their effect onViterbi synchronization

This paper studies the invariance of a given punctured convolutional code to an affine class of symbol transformations known to commonly occur in digital transceiver systems. A set of conditions to test the invariance of a code to these transformations has been derived, followed by two proposed methods to compensate for an invariant transformation. The viability of these methods has been examined by doing an invariant factor decomposition on the equivalent code generator matrix (obtained from the original code generator matrix and the given transform). The knowledge of the transformation and the nature of its occurrence greatly determines which method of compensation could be used. This study has much use in not only enabling a code designer to evaluate the invariance of an affine transformation to a given code, but also on the other hand to make the appropriate choice of code generators, puncturing schemes, and bit-to-constellation symbol mapping; so as to allow a channel coding scheme to be either sensitive or invariant to a given transformation, depending upon design objectives     

A two-stage decoder for pragmatic trellis-coded M-PSK modulationusing a symbol transformation

A two-stage decoding procedure for pragmatic trellis-coded modulation (TCM) is introduced. It applies a transformation from the received I-channel and Q-channel samples onto points in a two-dimensional (2-D) signal space that contains a coset constellation. For pragmatic TCM over M-PSK signal sets with ν coded bits per symbol, ν=1, 2, the signal points in the coset constellations represent cosets of a B/QPSK signal subset-associated with the coded bits-in the original M-PSK signal constellation. A conventional Viterbi decoder operates on the transformed symbols to estimate the coded bits. After reencoding these bits, the uncoded bits are estimated in a second stage, on a symbol-by-symbol basis, with decisions based on the location of the received symbols. In addition to requiring no changes in the Viterbi decoder core, it is shown that the proposed method results in savings of up to 40% in the memory required to store (or in the size of the logic required to compute) metrics and transformed symbols     

Mitigating supply and production uncertainties with dynamic scheduling using real-time transport information

Supply and production uncertainties can affect the scheduling and inventory performance of final production systems. Facing such uncertainties, production managers normally choose to maintain the original production schedule, or follow the first-in-first-out policy. This paper develops a new, dynamic algorithm policy that considers scheduling and inventory problems, by taking advantage of real-time shipping information enabled by today’s advanced technology. Simulation models based on the industrial example of a chemical company and the Taguchi’s method are used to test these three policies under 81 experiments with varying supply and production lead times and uncertainties. Simulation results show that the proposed dynamic algorithm outperforms the other two policies for supply chain cost. Results from Taguchi’s method show that companies should focus their long-term effort on the reduction of supply lead times, which positively affects the mitigation of supply uncertainty.