Upper bound on the minimum distance of turbo codes

An upper bound on the minimum distance of turbo codes is derived, which depends only on the interleaver length and the component scramblers employed. The derivation of this bound considers exclusively turbo encoder input words of weight 2. The bound does not only hold for a particular interleaver but for all possible interleavers including the best. It is shown that in contrast to general linear binary codes the minimum distance of turbo codes cannot grow stronger than the square root of the block length. This implies that turbo codes are asymptotically bad. A rigorous proof for the bound is provided, which is based on a geometric approach     

Combined MMSE interference suppression and turbo coding for acoherent DS-CDMA system

The performance of a turbo-coded code division multiaccess system with a minimum mean-square error (MMSE) receiver for interference suppression is analyzed on a Rayleigh fading channel. In order to accurately estimate the performance of the turbo coding, two improvements are proposed on the conventional union bounds: the information of the minimum distance of a particular turbo interleaver is used to modify the average weight spectra, and the tangential bound is extended to the Rayleigh fading channel. Theoretical results are derived based on the optimum tap weights of the MMSE receiver and maximum-likelihood decoding. Simulation results incorporating iterative decoding, RLS adaptation, and the effects of finite interleaving are also presented. The results show that in the majority of the scenarios that we are concerned with, the MMSE receiver with a rate-1/2 turbo code will outperform a rate-1/4 turbo code. They also show that, for a bit error rate lower than 10^-3, the capacity of the system is increased by using turbo codes over convolutional codes, even with small block sizes     

Multilevel turbo coding with short interleavers

The impact of the interleaver, embedded in the encoder for a parallel concatenated code, called the turbo code, is studied. The known turbo codes consist of long random interleavers, whose purpose is to reduce the value of the error coefficients. It is shown that an increased minimum Hamming distance can be obtained by using a structured interleaver. For low bit-error rates (BERs), we show that the performance of turbo codes with a structured interleaver is better than that obtained with a random interleaver. Another important advantage of the structured interleaver is the short length required, which yields a short decoding delay and reduced decoding complexity (in terms of memory). We also consider the use of turbo codes as component codes in multilevel codes. Powerful coding structures that consist of two component codes are suggested. Computer simulations are performed in order to evaluate the reduction in coding gain due to suboptimal iterative decoding. From the results of these simulations we deduce that the degradation in the performance (due to suboptimal decoding) is very small     

Computing the free distance of turbo codes and seriallyconcatenated codes with interleavers: algorithms and applications

We present a new algorithm for computing the free distance d_free of parallel and serially concatenated codes with interleavers, the parameter that dominates the code performance at very high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). The knowledge of d_free allows one to analytically estimate the error floor, which may prevent the use of concatenated codes in applications requiring very low error rates. The algorithm is based on the new notion of constrained subcodes, and permits the computation of large distances for large interleavers without a constraint on the input sequence weight (e.g., up to d_free=40 for a rate-1/3 turbo code with interleaver length N=3568). Applications to practical cases of relevant interest, i.e., (1) the new Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) standard for deep-space telemetry and (2) the new UMTS/3GPP standard for third-generation personal communications, are presented for the first time. Other related aspects, like a study on the free distance distribution of turbo codes with small/medium interleaver length, and a comparison between parallel and serial concatenation behavior, are also discussed     

Dependence of d/sub free/ in MPCCC systems

This letter first investigates the distribution of the free distance, parameter d/sub free/ for multiple parallel concatenated schemes based on random interleavers. The distribution is obtained by computer search for information weight IW=2 error events, which are the most likely events to produce d/sub free/, at least for turbo codes. The dependence upon interleaver length and code memory is also studied. The design of the S-interleaver for turbo codes is shown to depend upon a combination of IW=2 error events (which are dependent on S) and IW=2+2 "crossed" error events (which are independent of S). The limiting value of S (for which the two effects are equal) is calculated for turbo codes and a novel algorithm to increase this limit (and hence, d/sub free/) is presented. The S-random interleaver design is extended to schemes with two interleavers, for which the use of paired S-random interleavers is proposed.     

Interleaver design for turbo codes

The performance of a turbo code with short block length depends critically on the interleaver design. There are two major criteria in the design of an interleaver: the distance spectrum of the code and the correlation between the information input data and the soft output of each decoder corresponding to its parity bits. This paper describes a new interleaver design for turbo codes with short block length based on these two criteria. A deterministic interleaver suitable for turbo codes is also described. Simulation results compare the new interleaver design to different existing interleavers     

Comparison of iterative decoder performance with union bounds for short frame turbo codes

We consider short frame turbo codes, suitable for delay-sensitive services such as conversational speech, or for encoding single ATM cells. We compare the uniform interleaver bound of Benedetto and Montorsi, and a union bound obtained by estimating the weight distribution due to the actual pseudo-random interleaver, with the simulated BER using an iterative decoder. We show that the uniform interleaver bound is significantly pessimistic at high SNR, where the random interleaver union bound is quite close. However, at lower SNR the ber exceeds the union bound, showing that it does not achieve ml decoding. We also consider half rate turbo codes formed by puncturing various proportions of the data and parity sequences, and adapt the uniform interleaver bounds for these codes. We show that while the union bounds predict better performance for data-punctured codes, in practice they perform better only at high snr and for limited proportions of data puncturing.     

Combined turbo codes and interleaver design

The impact of the distance spectrum and interleaver structure on the bit error probability of turbo codes is considered. A new turbo code design method for Gaussian channels is presented. The proposed method combines a search for good component codes with interleaver design. The optimal distance spectrum is used as the design criterion to construct good turbo component codes at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). In addition, an interleaver design method is proposed. This design improves the code performance at high SNR. Search for good component codes at low SNR is combined with a code matched interleaver design. This results in new turbo codes with a superior error performance relative to the best known codes at both low and high SNR. The performance is verified by both analysis and simulation     

On the theory and performance of trellis termination methods forturbo codes

The performance of a turbo code can be severely degraded if no trellis termination is employed. This paper investigates the implications of the choice of trellis termination method for turbo codes, and explains the origin of the performance degradation often experienced without trellis termination. An efficient method to derive the distance spectrum of turbo codes for different trellis termination methods is presented. Further, we present interleaver design rules that are tailored to each termination method. Using interleavers designed with these restrictions, we demonstrate that the performance difference between various termination methods is very small, including no trellis termination at all. For example, we demonstrate a turbo code with a 500-bit interleaver that exhibits no sign of an error floor for frame error rates as low as 10^-8, even though no trellis termination is employed     

A new upper bound on the minimum distance of turbo codes

In this paper, a new upper bound on the minimum distance of turbo codes is derived. The new bound is obtained by construction of an undirected graph which reflects the characteristics of the constituent codes and the interleaver. The resulting expression shows that the minimum distance of a turbo code grows approximately with the base-3 logarithm of the information word length. The new bound is easy to compute, applies to rate k/sub 0//n/sub 0/ constituent encoders, and often improves over existing results.     

Accumulate-Repeat-Accumulate Codes

In this paper, we propose an innovative channel coding scheme called accumulate-repeat-accumulate (ARA) codes. This class of codes can be viewed as serial turbo-like codes or as a subclass of low-density parity check (LDPC) codes, and they have a projected graph or protograph representation; this allows for high-speed iterative decoding implementation using belief propagation. An ARA code can be viewed as precoded repeat accumulate (RA) code with puncturing or as precoded irregular repeat accumulate (IRA) code, where simply an accumulator is chosen as the precoder. The amount of performance improvement due to the precoder will be called precoding gain. Using density evolution on their associated protographs, we find some rate-1/2 ARA codes, with a maximum variable node degree of 5 for which a minimum bit SNR as low as 0.08 dB from channel capacity threshold is achieved as the block size goes to infinity. Such a low threshold cannot be achieved by RA, IRA, or unstructured irregular LDPC codes with the same constraint on the maximum variable node degree. Furthermore, by puncturing the inner accumulator, we can construct families of higher rate ARA codes with thresholds that stay close to their respective channel capacity thresholds uniformly. Iterative decoding simulation results are provided and compared with turbo codes. In addition to iterative decoding analysis, we analyzed the performance of ARA codes with maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding. By obtaining the weight distribution of these codes and through existing tightest bounds we have shown that the ML SNR threshold of ARA codes also approaches very closely to that of random codes. These codes have better interleaving gain than turbo codes     

Asymptotically Gaussian weight distribution and performance of multicomponent turbo block codes and product codes

It was suggested by Battail that a good long linear code should have a weight distribution close to that of random coding, rather than a large minimum distance, and a turbo code should be also designed using a random-like criterion. In this paper, we first show that the weight distribution of a high-rate linear block code is approximately Gaussian if the code rate is close enough to one, and then proceed to construct a low-rate linear block code with approximately Gaussian weight distribution by using the turbo-coding technique. We give a sufficient condition under which the weight distribution of multicomponent turbo block (MCTB) codes (multicomponent product (MCP) codes, respectively) can approach asymptotically that of random codes, and further develop two classes of MCTB codes (MCP codes) satisfying this condition. Simulation results show that MCTB codes (MCP codes) having asymptotically Gaussian weight distribution can asymptotically approach Shannon's capacity limit. MCTB codes based on single parity-check (SPC) codes have a far poorer minimum distance than MCP codes based on SPC codes, but we show by simulation that when the bit-error rate is in the important range of 10/sup -1/-10/sup -5/, these codes can still offer similar performance for the additive white Gaussian noise channel, as long as the code length of the SPC codes is not very short. These facts confirm in a more precise way Battail's inference about the "nonimportance" of the minimum distance for a long code.     

Weight spectrum evaluation for multi-binary tailbiting turbo codes

In this paper we propose a method for the evaluation of the weight spectrum of parallel concatenated turbo codes with tailbiting (circular) m-ary component codes. Our method is based on a two step evaluation; we search and store a set of error events for the component codes; then, we evaluate the spectrum of the concatenated code with the actual interleaver. When working with different interleavers, the first step is computed only once. We show some examples with rate 6/7 component codes.     

A code-matched interleaver design for turbo codes

A code-matched interleaver design for turbo codes in which a particular interleaver is constructed to match the code weight distribution is proposed. The design method is based on the code distance spectrum. The low weight paths in the code trellis which give large contributions to the error probability in the signal-to-noise ratio region of interest for practical communication systems are eliminated so that they do not appear in the overall code trellis after interleaving. The proposed interleaver improves the code error performance at moderate to high signal-to-noise ratio and considerably increases the asymptotic slope of the error probability curves     

随机交织器的设计与实现

本文首先分析了随机交织器在Ｔｕｒｂｏ码中的重要作用。然后讨论了交织器长度的选择原则,并且对ＡＷＧＮ信道和Ｒａｙｌｅｉｇｎ衰落信道条件下交织深度对Ｔｕｒｂｏ码性能的影响进行了计算机模拟。在此基础上,给出了随机交织器的两种硬件电路实现方案,其中方案二便于ＡＳＩＣ实现。     

Nonsystematic turbo codes

In this paper, we introduce the concept of nonsystematic turbo codes and compare them with classical systematic turbo codes. Nonsystematic turbo codes can achieve lower error floors than systematic turbo codes because of their superior effective free distance properties. Moreover, they can achieve comparable performance in the waterfall region if the nonsystematic constituent encoder has a low-weight feedforward inverse. A uniform interleaver analysis is used to show that rate R=1/3 turbo codes using nonsystematic constituent encoders have larger effective free distances than when systematic constituent encoders are used. Also, mutual information-based transfer characteristics and extrinsic information transfer charts are used to show that rate R=1/3 turbo codes with nonsystematic constituent encoders having low-weight feedforward inverses achieve convergence thresholds comparable to those achieved with systematic constituent encoders. Catastrophic encoders, which do not possess a feedforward inverse, are shown to be capable of achieving low convergence thresholds by doping the code with a small fraction of systematic bits. Finally, we give tables of good nonsystematic turbo codes and present simulation results comparing the performance of systematic and nonsystematic turbo codes.     

Zigzag codes and concatenated zigzag codes

This paper introduces a family of error-correcting codes called zigzag codes. A zigzag code is described by a highly structured zigzag graph. Due to the structural properties of the graph, very low-complexity soft-in/soft-out decoding rules can be implemented. We present a decoding rule, based on the Max-Log-APP (MLA) formulation, which requires a total of only 20 addition-equivalent operations per information bit, per iteration. Simulation of a rate-1/2 concatenated zigzag code with four constituent encoders with interleaver length 65 536, yields a bit error rate (BER) of 10^-5 at 0.9 dB and 1.3 dB away from the Shannon limit by optimal (APP) and low-cost suboptimal (MLA) decoders, respectively. A union bound analysis of the bit error probability of the zigzag code is presented. It is shown that the union bounds for these codes can be generated very efficiently. It is also illustrated that, for a fixed interleaver size, the concatenated code has increased code potential as the number of constituent encoders increases. Finally, the analysis shows that zigzag codes with four or more constituent encoders have lower error floors than comparable turbo codes with two constituent encoders     

High performance, high throughput turbo/SOVA decoder design

Two efficient approaches are proposed to improve the performance of soft-output Viterbi (1998) algorithm (SOVA)-based turbo decoders. In the first approach, an easily obtainable variable and a simple mapping function are used to compute a target scaling factor to normalize the extrinsic information output from turbo decoders. An extra coding gain of 0.5 dB can be obtained with additive white Gaussian noise channels. This approach does not introduce extra latency and the hardware overhead is negligible. In the second approach, an adaptive upper bound based on the channel reliability is set for computing the metric difference between competing paths. By combining the two approaches, we show that the new SOVA-based turbo decoders can approach maximum a posteriori probability (MAP)-based turbo decoders within 0.1 dB when the target bit-error rate (BER) is moderately low (e.g., BER<10/sup -4/ for 1/2 rate codes). Following this, practical implementation issues are discussed and finite precision simulation results are provided. An area-efficient parallel decoding architecture is presented in this paper as an effective approach to design high-throughput turbo/SOVA decoders. With the efficient parallel architecture, multiple times throughput of a conventional serial decoder can be obtained by increasing the overall hardware by a small percentage. To resolve the problem of multiple memory accesses per cycle for the efficient parallel architecture, a novel two-level hierarchical interleaver architecture is proposed. Simulation results show that the proposed interleaver architecture performs as well as random interleavers, while requiring much less storage of random patterns.     

一种具有低相关特性的分块交织器的设计

Ｔｕｒｂｏｃｏｄｅｓ是近年信道编码理论研究的热点课题。交织器的设计问题是Ｔｕｒｂｏｃｏｄｅｓ研究中的主要问题之一。本文结合Ｔｕｒｂｏｃｏｄｅｓ在个人通信中的应用问题，对分块交织方法进行了研究，给出了一种新的交织器的设计方案，理论分析和计算机仿真证实了此方案在实现上和相关性上都具有良好的性能。同时，本文从理论上解释了在交织长度很大时，交织器的选择对Ｔｕｒｂｏｃｏｄｅｓ译码性能几乎没有影响的原因。     

Design of cyclic shift interleavers for Turbo Codes

In this paper we consider cyclic shift interleavers for turbo coding. The properties of cyclic shift interleavers are discussed and compared with S-random interleavers. It is shown that the cyclic shift interleavers are equivalent or better than the S-random interleavers in the ability to break low weight input patterns. We estimated the performance of turbo codes with cyclic shift interleavers and compared it with the performance of S-random interleavers for varions interleaver sizes. The simulation results show that a turbo code with a cyclic shift interleaver can achieve a better performance than an S-random interleaver if the parameters of the cyclic shift interleaver are chosen properly. In addition, the cyclic interleavers have the advantages of lower design complexity and memory requirements.