Serial and Parallel Turbo Codes

Serial and Parallel Con
atenated
Turbo Codes
Mark Sum Chuen Ho
B.Eng(Hons)
Institute for Tele ommuni ations Resear h

S hool of Ele tri al and Information Engineering
The University of South Australia
Submitted for the degree of

PhD Eng Tele ommuni ation (Resear h)
November 2002
Contents
1 Introdu tion
1.1 Summary of ontributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2 Fundamentals of Turbo odes
2.1 Introdu tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2.2 System stru ture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.1 PCCC en oder . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.2 SCCC en oder . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3 Con ept of iterative de oding . . . . . . . .
2.4 Component de oder for PCCCs and SCCCs
2.4.1 MAP de oding algorithm . . . . . . .
2.4.2 Log-MAP de oding algorithm . . . .
2.4.3 Max-log-MAP de oding algorithm . .
2.4.4 SOVA de oder . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.5 Iterative de oding of PCCCs and SCCCs . .
2.5.1 PCCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.5.2 SCCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.5.3 Comparison of PCCCs and SCCCs .
2.6 Turbo odes with asymmetri omplexity . .
2.6.1 SCCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.6.2 PCCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.7 Con lusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3 Constituent odes for PCCC de oders.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
3.1 Introdu tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3.2 Generating the distan e spe trum . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.1 Constituent PCCC en oder . . . . . . . . .
3.2.2 State diagram of onvolutional odes . . . .
3.2.3 State Transition Matrix . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.4 Unidire tional Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3 Average upper bound based on uniform interleaver
3.4 Trun ated union bound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5 Minimising number of nearest neighbours . . . . . .
i
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
5
6
7
7
8
10
11
15
17
18
19
19
22
23
24
25
25
28
29
29
29
30
32
33
36
38
41
41
CONTENTS
ii
3.6 Ee tive free distan e and minimum distan e . . . . . . . .
3.7 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.7.1 Trun ated union bounds of PCCC . . . . . . . . . . .
3.7.2 Maximum likelihood de oding and iterative de oding
3.8 Con lusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4 Interleaver Design
4.1 Introdu tion . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4.2 Interleaver Properties . . . . . . . .
4.2.1 S distan e Property . . . . .
4.2.2 Mod-k Property . . . . . . .
4.2.3 Symmetri Property . . . .
4.3 Interleaver Types . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.1 Blo k Interleaver . . . . . .
4.3.2 Cir ular Interleaver . . . . .
4.3.3 Blo k heli al Interleaver . .
4.3.4 Pseudo-random Interleaver .
4.3.5 Symmetri Interleavers . . .
4.4 Symmetri Mod-k interleaver . . .
4.5 Interleaver Size and Performan e .
4.6 Symmetri Interleavers and SCCCs
4.7 Con lusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
5 Varian e estimation for PCCCs and SCCCs
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
5.1 Introdu tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5.2 Varian e sensitivity of PCCCs and SCCCs . . .
5.2.1 Varian e sensitivity of onstituent odes
5.2.2 Varian e mismat h of PCCCs . . . . . .
5.2.3 Varian e mismat h of SCCC . . . . . . .
5.3 Varian e estimation methods. . . . . . . . . . .
5.3.1 Summer varian e estimator . . . . . . .
5.3.2 Reed varian e estimator . . . . . . . . .
5.3.3 New Reed varian e estimator . . . . . .
5.4 Varian e estimator performan e . . . . . . . . .
5.4.1 PCCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.4.2 SCCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.5 Mean Squared Error Performan e . . . . . . . .
5.6 Con lusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6 Con lusion
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
43
46
52
52
53
54
54
55
55
57
65
65
68
69
69
71
72
81
87
91
94
95
95
95
96
96
98
101
101
103
104
105
105
105
107
107
110
6.1 Summary of results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

6.2 Areas for Future Resear h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Bibliography
114
CONTENTS
iii
A Performan e bounds of PCCC
119
B Interleaver generator ow diagram
123
C Matlab ode for Chapter 4
126
D Matlab ode for Chapter 5
127
List of Figures
1.1 Stru ture of a digital ommuni ation system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
2.10
2.11
2.12
2.13
Stru ture of a digital ommuni ation system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PCCC en oder stru ture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Examples of a four state RSC en oder, (a) rate 1/2 and (b) rate 2/3. . . .
SCCC en oder stru ture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Stru ture of an iterative de oder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The al ulation of km. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The al ulation of km. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Comparison of PCCC BER performan e for dierent lookup table sizes. . .
Comparison of SCCC BER performan e for dierent lookup table sizes. . .
BER performan e of a four state rate 1/3 PCCC, N=10,000. . . . . . . . .
SCCC de oder stru ture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BER performan e of a four state rate 1/3 SCCC, N=10,000. . . . . . . . .
BER performan e omparison of four state rate 1/3 PCCC and SCCC,
N=10,000. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.14 PCCC BER performan e with asymmetri omplexity CC, mixture of four
state and eight state odes, 192 bit interleaver, six iterations. . . . . . . . .
2.15 PCCC BER performan e with asymmetri omplexity CC, mixture of two
state and four state odes, 192 bit interleaver, six iterations. . . . . . . . .
2.16 BER performan e of rate 1/2 RSC with memory lengths 1,2,3 and 4. . . .
3.1 En oder stru ture for a (2,1,2) RSC ode with generator polynomials f7,5g .
3.2 Trellis stru ture and state diagram for a (2,1,2) RSC en oder with generator
polynomials f7,5g . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3 Modied state diagram of Figure 3.2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4 Trellis se tions of unidire tional algorithm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5 Trun ated union bound and BER performan e of rate 1/2 PCCC using
eight state rate 2/3 onstituent en oders, N=400 and 6 de oder iterations.
3.6 Trun ated union bound and BER performan e of rate 1/2 PCCC using
eight state rate 2/3 onstituent en oders, N=4096 and 6 de oder iterations.
3.7 Trun ated union bound and BER performan e between dierent riteria of
maximisation for N=400 and 6 de oder iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
iv
1
6
7
8
8
9
14
15
17
18
20
23
24
25
27
27
28
33
34
34
37
43
44
45
LIST OF FIGURES
3.8 Trun ated union bound and BER performan e between dierent riteria of
maximisation for N=4096 and 6 de oder iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.9 En oder stru ture for rate 1/n RSC onstituent ode (eight state rate 1/3
example). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.10 En oder stru ture for rate k/(k+1) systemati feedba k onvolutional ode
(eight state rate 2/3 example). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.11 BER performan e omparison between repetition and non-repetition onstituent odes for four state rate 1/5 PCCC, N=512. . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.12 BER performan e omparison between repetition and non-repetition onstituent ode for four state rate 1/5 PCCC, N=1024. . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.13 Trun ated union bound for rate 1/3 PCCC with 1024 bit interleaver, with
2 state to 128 state rate 1/2 onstituent odes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1 Input/output position plot of a 192 bit pseudo-random interleaver. . . . . .
4.2 Input/output position plot of a 192 bit S-random interleaver. . . . . . . . .
4.3 PCCC performan e with random interleaver and in reasing S onstraint,
192 bit interleaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
512 bit interleaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2048 bit interleaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4096 bit interleaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.7 4 state rate 1/3 SCCC simulation with 192 bit interleaver of dierent S
values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.10 Amount of prote tion on information bits between random interleaver and
mod-2 interleaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.11 Input/output position plot of a 192 bit mod-2 S-random interleaver. . . . .
4.12 Example of a nine element pure mod-3 interleaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.13 4 state rate 1/2 turbo ode with dierent 256 bit mod-2 interleavers, eight
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.17 Interleave and deinterleave pattern for symmetri and random interleaver. .
4.18 Input/output position plot of a 192 bit blo k interleaver. . . . . . . . . . .
v
45
46
46
51
51
52
56
57
58
58
59
59
60
60
61
62
63
64
66
66
67
67
68
70
vi
LIST OF FIGURES
4.19 Input/output position plot of a 192 bit ir ular shift interleaver, a = 17. . .
4.20 A 3 4 blo k heli al interleaver with interleaving from (a) the upper left
hand orner and (b) the lower left hand orner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.21 Input/output position plot of a 208 bit blo k heli al interleaver. . . . . . .
4.22 Position plot of a 4 3 blo k heli al interleaver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.23 Input/output position plot of a blo k heli al symmetri interleaver. . . . .
4.24 Input/ouput position plot of a 192 bit ir ular symmetri interleaver with
a = 31. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.25 BER performan e of 255 bit ir ular interleaver with dierent values of a. .
4.26 BER performan e of 1023 bit ir ular interleaver with dierent values of a.
4.27 BER performan e of 4095 bit ir ular interleaver with dierent values of a.
4.28 Input/output position plot of a 192 bit S-symmetri interleaver. . . . . . .
4.29 Interleaver performan e omparison for four state rate 1/3 turbo ode,
N=1024, six iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.30 4 state rate 1/3 turbo ode with dierent 400 bit interleavers and eight
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.33 Comparison between dierent types of symmetri interleaver with six iterations, N =256. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.34 Comparison between dierent types of symmetri interleaver with eight
iterations, N =512. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations, N =1024. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations, N =4096. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.37 4 state rate 1/2 turbo ode with dierent 1024 bit interleaver designs and
six iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.44 4 state rate 1/3 turbo ode with dierent interleaver sizes and eight iterations.
70
71
72
74
76
77
78
78
79
80
82
82
83
83
84
84
85
85
86
87
88
88
89
89
90
90
LIST OF FIGURES
4.45
4.46
4.47
4.48
4.49
vii
4 state rate 1/3 SCCC simulation with dierent types of 192 bit interleaver.
5.1 BER performan e of four state rate 1/2 log-MAP de oder versus de oder
Eb =N oset, N=1024. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2 BER performan e of four state rate 2/3 log-MAP de oder versus de oder
Eb =N oset, N=1024. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3 BER performan e of four state rate 1/3 PCCC versus de oder Eb =N oset,
N=1024, six iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.4 BER performan e of four state rate 1/3 SCCC versus de oder Eb =N oset,
N=256, eight iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
N=2048, six iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.8 f (x) versus Channel Varian e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.9 Performan e omparison between dierent varian e estimators, four state,
rate 1/3 PCCC, N=384 and six iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
rate 1/3 PCCC, N=4092 and six iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
rate 1/3 PCCC, N=8192 and six iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.12 Performan e omparison between dierent varian e estimators, four state
rate 1/3 SCCC, N=384 and six iterations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
91
92
92
93
93
97
97
A.1 Trun ated union bound for rate 1/5 PCCC with 1024 bits interleaver, with
2 state to 128 state pun tured rate 1/2 onstituent odes. . . . . . . . . . .
98
99
100
100
101
102
106
106
107
108
108
109
119
120
120
121
viii
LIST OF FIGURES
2 state to 32 state pun tured rate 1/4 onstituent odes. . . . . . . . . . .
B.1 Flow diagram of a mod-k interleaver generator with S distan e property. .
B.2 Flow diagram of a symmetri interleaver with S and mod-k properties. . .
121
122
122
124
125
List of Tables
2.1 Rate 1/2 RSC generator polynomials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1 Generator polynomials with dierent number of neighbours. . . . . . . . .
3.2 Eight state rate 2/3 onstituent odes that were sear hed a ording to
dierent riteria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3 Best rate 1/2 onstituent odes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4 Best rate 2/3 pun tured rate 1/2 onstituent odes with pun turing pattern
[1 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1 Input/output index of the heli al interleaver in Figure 4.22. . . . . . . . . .
5.1 Mean Squared Error for dierent estimators with blo k size of 384. . . . .
ix
26
42
44
47
48
48
48
49
49
49
50
50
74
109
Glossary
Term

AWGN
BER
BPSK
CC
CWEF
HCCCs
IRWEF
MAP
PCCC
QPSK
RSC
SCCC
SOVA
Denition
interleaver
deinterleaver
additive white Gaussian noise
bit error rate
binary phase shift keying
onstituent odes
onditional weight enumerating fun tion
hybrid on atenated onvolutional odes
input-redundan y weight enumerating fun tion
maximum a posteriori
parallel on atenated onvolutional odes
quadrature phase shift keying
re ursive systemati onvolutional
serial on atenated onvolutional odes
soft output Viterbi algorithm
Page
7
10
12
2
1
7
39
38
39
11
3
1
5
3
11
Summary
Turbo odes were rst introdu ed by Berrou et. al in 1993. It is a lass of odes whi h
on atenate two or more re ursive systemati onvolutional odes (RSC) in parallel, with
the input to ea h RSC permuted by an interleaver. These odes an a hieve performan e
very lose to Shannon's apa ity with large interleavers (several kilobits).
The performan e of turbo odes is determined by ve dierent fa tors: onstituent
en oder design, interleaver design, onstituent de oder algorithm, interleaver size and
number of de oder iterations. The latter three fa tors require in reases in delay or omplexity in order to gain extra improvement. However, the rst two fa tors an a hieve
improvement in performan e without in reases in omplexity. Due to the presen e of an
interleaver in the stru ture of turbo odes, onventional design rules for onvolutional
odes are not suitable. It was found that the performan e of turbo odes depends on the
minimum distan e generated by weight two input sequen es, the ee tive free distan e.
Previous ode sear hes involved nding odes that have maximum ee tive free distan e.
Here the ode sear h was extended to odes that maximise ee tive free distan e as well
as minimise the number of nearest neighbours. Further riteria were also used to isolate
the best ode when more than one ode has a similar number of nearest neighbours and
the same ee tive free distan e.
Another way of improving the performan e of turbo odes is to design good interleavers so that maximum performan e an be a hieved for the same blo k size. Dierent
interleaver generation methods were investigated and their bit error rate performan e for
parallel and serial s hemes were ompared. Symmetri interleavers, whi h have identi al interleave and deinterleave patterns, were also studied. The symmetri property an
xi
redu e interleaver implementation omplexity. Interleavers an also be modied so that

they are designed to improve the prote tion of ea h bit in a pun tured turbo oding
s heme.
The de oding of ea h onstituent ode an be performed by using a MAP de oder. In
order for a MAP de oder to operate orre tly the varian e of the hannel has to be known
before de oding an start. It is known that the performan e of a MAP de oder does not
signi antly degrade if the estimated varian e is lower than the a tual true varian e of
the hannel. However, the de oder will have severe degradation if the estimated varian e
is higher than expe ted. It is also known that the same ee t also applies to parallel
on atenation. However, the ee t on the performan e of serial on atenated s hemes
has not been previously studied. Our investigations show that the serial s heme is less
forgiving ompared to the parallel on atenation. If the estimated varian e is either too
high or lower than the a tual true varian e, performan e will degrade.
Also, unlike parallel odes, if the estimated varian e is slightly higher than the true
varian e, we found that the performan e slightly in reases. Dierent methods of varian e
estimation have been used to estimate the varian e of the hannel. We found that the
Summer estimator, Reed estimator and the New Reed estimator perform very well for
both large and small blo k sizes.
xii
De laration
I de lare that this thesis presents work arried out by myself and does not in orporate
without a knowledgment any material previously submitted for a degree or diploma in
any university; and that to the best of my knowledge it does not ontain any materials
previously published or written by another person ex ept where due referen e is made in
the text.
Mark S. C. Ho
xiii
A knowledgements
First I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Mark Ri e, Dr. Steven Pietrobon and Dr.
Tim Giles, for their help and ontributions to the thesis. I would also like to thank all the
sta members at the Institute for Tele ommuni ations Resear h (ITR) at the University of
South Australia for their nan ial and te hni al support whi h made this study possible.
Espe ially, I would like to thank Dr. Paul Gray, Dr. Mark Reed, John Buetefuer,
and Paul Petit for all of their dis ussions and omments related to this thesis.
Finally, I would like to thank my family in Hong Kong for their support throughout
the ten years that I have been studying in Australia.
xiv
Chapter 1
Introdu tion
The stru ture of a digital ommuni ation system is shown in Figure 1.1. At the transmitter
side we have the sour e en oder onverting the analog or digital information sour e to a
sequen e of binary digits. The sequen e of binary digits is passed to the turbo en oder
and the output modulated by the digital modulator before being transmitted a ross the
physi al hannel to the re eiver. The modulator an use s hemes su h as binary phase
shift keying (BPSK) or quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK). At the re eiver side the
re eived signal, orrupted with noise and interferen e from the hannel, is demodulated
by the digital demodulator and its output de oded by the turbo de oder to remove any
errors generated due to the hannel. The output of the turbo de oder is then onverted
ba k to the transmitted information by the sour e de oder.
Information
source
Source
encoder
Channel
encoder
Digital
modulator
Channel
Information
sink
Source
decoder
Channel
decoder
Digital
demodulator
Figure 1.1: Stru ture of a digital ommuni ation system.

1
The role of the hannel en oder/de oder pair is to prote t the binary information
generated by the sour e en oder by adding redundan y to the sour e binary sequen e.
This added redundan y an be used at the re eiver to orre t errors generated due to
noise and interferen e of the physi al hannel.
Dierent lasses of error ontrol odes have been proposed in the last ve de ades.
They in lude Hamming odes, BCH odes, y li odes, Reed-Solomon odes, onvolutional odes, et . All of these odes are trying to get loser to the Shannon limit: the
transmission of error free information at the full apa ity of the hannel. The entire oding so iety is very ex ited about the dis overy of turbo odes [1, a lass of on atenated
onvolutional odes that an a hieve performan e very lose to the Shannon limit. Sin e
the announ ement of turbo odes in 1993, mu h resear h has been performed to gain
more understanding of their performan e, su h as better onstituent odes [2, 3, better
interleavers [4, 5, 6, 7, and simpli ation of the de oding algorithm [8, 9, 10.
This thesis is organised as follows: Chapter 2 presents the basi s of turbo odes.
We des ribe the MAP de oding algorithm [9, 11 and its appli ation to parallel or serial
on atenated turbo odes. A omparison is made between parallel and serial s hemes.
We also give some indi ations about how the performan e of onstituent odes an ae t
the performan e of turbo odes.
In Chapter 3 we improve the performan e of parallel on atenated turbo odes by
nding onstituent odes that have maximum ee tive free distan e as well as minimum
number of nearest neighbours. Additional parameters are also used to nd better odes
when there is more than one ode that have identi al parameters. The bit error rate (BER)
performan e bounds with two dierent ode rates are plotted to show that in reasing the
trellis omplexity of onstituent odes does improve the performan e of turbo odes when
maximum likelihood de oders are used.
In Chapter 4 we look at dierent types of interleavers that an be used with turbo
odes. We rst present the generation methods for a number of dierent interleaver types.
We then look at a lass of interleavers that have identi al interleave and deinterleave pat2
terns, alled symmetri interleavers [7. We nd that it is possible that various types of
interleavers, e.g., heli al interleavers, an also be symmetri . In addition to the implementation advantages of symmetri interleavers, we found that symmetri interleavers an
a hieve better performan e ompared to non-symmetri interleavers. We also investigate
the performan e of dierent types of interleavers when applied to serial turbo odes. We
found that, as opposed to the parallel s heme, a spread interleaver [4 outperforms other
types of interleavers, in luding symmetri interleavers.
In Chapter 5 the impa t of hannel varian e mismat h on the BER performan e of
serial on atenated onvolutional odes (SCCC) and parallel on atenated onvolutional
odes (PCCC) was investigated. It was found that serial s hemes are more sensitive to
hannel varian e mismat h when ompared to parallel s hemes. We reviewed two dierent
varian e estimation s hemes and applied them to the serial s heme. We found that both
s hemes work very well with a serial de oder. The s hemes also work well for small blo k
sizes.
1.1 Summary of ontributions

The original ontributions of this investigation are:
Chapter 3
{ We nd onstituent odes for PCCCs with maximal ee tive free distan e as
well as minimum number of nearest neighbours.

{ Additional riteria were used to further sele t the onstituent ode if more than
one ode has identi al distan e properties.

{ The bounds of PCCCs with dierent onstituent ode en oder omplexities
were al ulated. We found that we do get improvement as the omplexity

in reases.
Chapter 4
3
{ We nd the performan e of symmetri interleavers (interleavers whi h have
identi al interleave and deinterleave sequen es) have identi al performan e

ompared to a random interleaver.
{ We ombine dierent properties of an interleaver together so as to a hieve
better results than those with only a single property.

{ We nd that other interleaver types an also be symmetri .
{ Performan e of dierent interleaver types for SCCCs were ompared. We found
that a spread interleaver works best.
Chapter 5
{ We found that SCCCs are more sensitive to varian e mismat h ompared to
PCCCs. Slightly overestimating the varian e was found to in rease performan e.

{ Performan e of two dierent varian e estimators for SCCCs were ompared.
We found that both estimators perform quite well when applied to SCCCs.
For PCCC's, the Reed-Asenstorfer varian e estimator performed better than
the Summer-Stephen varian e estimator for small blo k sizes.
Chapter 2
Fundamentals of Turbo odes
2.1 Introdu tion
Turbo odes were introdu ed by Berrou et. al. in 1993 [1. It is a lass of odes whi h
on atenate two or more re ursive systemati onvolutional (RSC) odes in parallel, and
where the input to all ex ept one RSC is rst permuted by an interleaver. These odes an
a hieve a performan e very lose to Shannon's apa ity with large interleavers (several
kilobits). However, for small interleavers it an still have amazing performan e over other
on atenated odes.
Sin e the input to ea h onvolutional en oder is separated by an interleaver, Turbo
odes are en oded in the form of a blo k. Ea h blo k onsists of the systemati un oded
data and the en oded data from ea h en oder. At the de oder side, a omponent de oder
is used to de ode information from ea h omponent en oder, with an interleaver and
a deinterleaver so that information an be ex hanged between the two de oders. The
pro ess of this ex hange of information is ontinued via iteration until the reliability of
the information is in reased to almost one. In this ase reliability is a measure of the
onden e of a de oded bit, ranging from zero (not reliable) to one.
In the following se tion we dis uss the idea of iterative de oding for Turbo odes.
We also look at some of the issues that ae t the performan e of Turbo odes, su h as
interleaver size, memory size and number of iterations. We note that the interleaver is a
permutation operation.
5
2.2 System stru ture

The stru ture of the digital ommuni ation system used in this thesis is shown in
Figure 2.1. At the transmitter side we have the sour e en oder onverting the analog or
digital information sour e to a sequen e of binary digits. The sequen e of binary digits is
passed to a turbo en oder and the output modulated by the digital modulator before being
transmitted a ross the physi al hannel to the re eiver. The modulator an use s hemes
su h as BPSK or QPSK. At the re eiver side, the re eived signal (whi h is orrupted
with noise and interferen e from the hannel) is demodulated by the digital demodulator
and its output de oded by a turbo de oder to remove any errors generated due to the
hannel. The output of the turbo de oder is then onverted ba k to the transmitted
information by the sour e de oder. The role of the turbo en oder/de oder pair is to
Information
source
BPSK or
QPSK
modulator
Turbo
encoder
Channel
AWGN, Rayleigh, etc.
Information
sink
BPSK or
QPSK
demodulator
Turbo
decoder
Figure 2.1: Stru ture of a digital ommuni ation system.

prote t the binary information generated by the sour e en oder by adding redundant bits
to the sour e binary sequen e. This added redundan y an be used at the re eiver to
orre t errors generated due to noise and interferen e of the physi al hannel.
Two ways of onstru ting turbo odes are PCCC and SCCC. Both stru tures onsist
of similar omponents su h as RSC en oders and interleavers. The onguration of ea h
omponent will lead to dierent performan e of the overall turbo ode.
6
2.2.1
PCCC en oder
PCCC is a lass of ode that on atenates two or more RSCs, termed onstituent
odes (CC), in parallel. The input to one en oder is not permuted. The input to the other
en oders are permuted so that the other onstituent en oders are fed with interleaved
versions of the input information sequen e. The Turbo en oder stru ture for a rate 1/3
Turbo ode with two rate 1/2 RSC onstituent en oders and one interleaver () is shown
in Figure 2.2. We an also use pun turing at the output of the Turbo en oder to in rease
- d
s
s
CC1
CC2
Figure 2.2: PCCC en oder stru ture.

the oding rate. For example, a pun turing pattern of f1 0g for CC and f0 1g for CC
will generate an overall PCCC ode rate of 1/2. Figure 2.3(a) shows a four state rate 1/2
RSC en oder with generator polynomial g=fg g g=f7 5g that is used in this thesis. O tal
notation of ode polynolmials with g being the divisor ploynomial is used throughout this
thesis.
1
0 1
2.2.2
SCCC en oder
An SCCC en oder is similar to the serial on atenated odes rst proposed by Forney
[12. The main dieren e is that an interleaver is lo ated between the output of the outer
en oder and the input of the inner en oder. Therefore, the output odewords of the outer
ode are interleaved, ompared to PCCCs where only the information bits are interleaved.
The en oder stru ture of a rate 1/3 SCCC, using a rate 1/2 outer en oder and a rate 2/3
7
u1
h0
h1
u2
h2
h0
h0
h1
h1
h2
h2
h2
2
h2
h1
c
(a) Rate 1/2 RSC encoder.
h0
(b) Rate 1/3 RSC encoder.
Figure 2.3: Examples of a four state RSC en oder, (a) rate 1/2 and (b) rate 2/3.
inner en oder, is shown in Figure 2.4. Although pun turing is possible with SCCCs, it

O
CC
Outer
d I
CCI nner
Figure 2.4: SCCC en oder stru ture.

is usually better if rate hanges are a hieved by hanging the CC of both the inner and
outer ode. For example, we an a hieve a rate 1/2 SCCC with a rate 1/2 outer ode
and a rate 1 inner ode. Note that due to the stru ture of SCCCs, only the inner ode is
required to be re ursive to a hieve interleaver gain [13.
2.3 Con ept of iterative de oding

The onventional way of on atenated de oding is to rst de ode the inner de oder.
The de oded information is then passed on to the outer de oder as the nal de oded
information. This only happens if one iteration is performed, i.e., the information are
not re y led to improve the onden e of the de oded information. This is ine ient
sin e if a soft de ision output de oder is used, the soft infomation an be reused by
the other de oder. Sin e the re y led information are obtained from a similar de oder,
the information must be pro essed to remove orrelation between ea h bit. The pro ess
repeats until the blo k is reliably de oded.
8
z2 + Lx + z10
x
y1
z1 + Lx
6-
?-+
De oder 1
z2
d^
? +
r-
De oder 2
z1 + Lx + z20
Figure 2.5: Stru ture of an iterative de oder.

Figure 2.5 shows the stru ture of generi iterative de oder. Here we assume that
we used a turbo ode stru ture with two onstituent odes. The information symbol d
and parity symbols and are modulated as x, y and y , respe tively. The modulated
symbols are transmitted a ross a wireless hannel. At the re eiver side the noise orrupted
symbols are fed into the turbo de oder. For the rst de oder we only want to de ode CC ,
therefore only x and y are input to the rst soft de ision de oder.
In the rst iteration, the rst soft de ision de oder outputs the estimated information
(z + Lx + z0 ) to the interleaver () to remove orrelation between the de oded information
bits. Lx is the log-likelihood ratio of x, dened as

p(d = 0jx)
:
Lx = log
p(d = 1jx)
Before interleaving, the input intrinsi information from De oder 2 (z ) is subtra ted
from the output soft information to obtain information Lx + z0 . This is to ensure that the
de oded information are not orrelated at the next de oding stage. After interleaving,
information is input into the se ond soft de ision de oder. For the rst iteration, z is
initialised to zero.
Note that interleaving auses the extrinsi information from de oder 1 z0 to be renamed as intrinsi information z for de oder 2. Extrinsi information an be thought
1
of as a soft orre tion term that removes errors aused by noise and interferen e on the
hannel.
The de oding of the se ond soft de ision de oder is based on the se ond set of transmitted symbols (y ) and the soft extrinsi information from the last soft de ision de oder.
This allows the de oder to make maximum use of all the information available from the
other de oder. Note that we only need to input y into de oder 2 to de ode CC sin e
the input information ontains information about d as well.
At the output of the se ond de oder we obtain an output that ontains both the
intrinsi information from de oder 1 and extrinsi information from de oder 2 (z + Lx +
z 0 ). This information an either be used to make a hard de ision or passed ba k to de oder
1 for another iteration.
Before another iteration starts, the output from de oder 2 will go through a pro ess
that is similar to that of the rst de oder, where the infomation (Lx + z ) at the input
of the de oder is subtra ted from the output to obtain the extrinsi information (z0 ).
This new information is deinterleaved by the deinterleaver ( ) and fedba k to the rst
de oder to ontinue with the next iteration of de oding. Deinterleaving auses z0 to be
renamed z .
Sin e the information is being re y led and improved by the de oder at ea h iteration
we expe t the performan e of the iterative de oder to improve at ea h iteration. As we
an see, an important fa tor of iterative de oding lies in the pro ess and ex hange of
extrinsi information between ea h de oder to improve the performan e at ea h de oder
iteration. One obvious question is how to obtain the soft output information in the rst
pla e so that the extrinsi information an be generated. In the next se tion we will look
at how the soft information an be generated by using a soft de ision de oding algorithm.
2
2.4 Component de oder for PCCCs and SCCCs

In this se tion we will look at the omponent de oder used for iterative de oding of
PCCCs and SCCCs. The main requirement for a turbo de oder is to be iterative. For both
10
PCCCs and SCCCs, the omponent de oder must be able to handle soft information both
at the input and output. This type of algorithm is required so that soft information an
be passed between ea h de oder to improve the performan e with ea h de oder iteration.
Dierent authors have proposed dierent types of algorithms that an handle soft information, e.g., maximum a posteriori (MAP) [8, 11, 14, log-MAP [9, 10, max-log-MAP
[10, 15 and soft output Viterbi algorithm (SOVA) [16, 17, 18, 19 algorithms.
We rst present the MAP and log-MAP algorithms whi h give the best performan e
with iterative de oding. This is followed by the sub-optimal max-log MAP and SOVA
algorithms (in terms of BER) whi h give poorer performan e with iterative de oding.
2.4.1
MAP de oding algorithm
The MAP de oding algorithm was rst proposed by Chang and Han o k [14 to
minimise the symbol error probability for an inter-symbol interferen e hannel. Later,
Bahl et. al. [11, 20 and M Adam et. al. [21 presented the algorithm for appli ation
on the oded hannel. Berrou et. al. [1 modied the algorithm presented in [11 for
systemati onvolutional odes.
Sin e then, a number of variations have been proposed. In [8, 9, 10 a simplied MAP
algorithm was proposed whi h an redu e the de oding omplexity with no degradation in
performan e. A sliding window version of the algorithm was also proposed whi h allows
real time de oding [8, 15. A simpler MAP algorithm alled Max-Log-MAP or sub-MAP
was proposed in [10 whi h performs only a fra tion worse than the MAP algorithm at
low BERs. The MAP de oder has also been implemented by a number of resear hers su h
as Pietrobon [9 and Barbules u et. al. [22.
Here we give a des ription of the MAP de oding algorithm presented in [9. The job
of the MAP de oder is, given a priori information of the oded and un oded data, to
output a posteriori probabilities of the oded and un oded symbols.
We dene Sk and dk as the en oder state and binary information bit at time k. Ea h
binary information bit is asso iated with a state transition from time k to time k + 1.
This hanges the en oder state from Sk to Sk .
+1
11
Here we onsider a rate 1/2 re ursive systemati en oder with an output symbol at
time k whi h onsists of un oded data dk and oded bit k . These symbols are modulated
with BPSK and transmitted a ross an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) hannel.
At the re eiver we have the re eived sequen e
R1N = (R1 ; :::; Rk ; :::; RN )
(2.2)
where Rk = (xk ; yk ) is the re eived symbol at time k. xk and yk are BPSK modulated
symbols dened as
xk = (2dk 1) + pk
yk = (2 k 1) + qk
where pk and qk are two independent normally distributed Gaussian noise variables with
zero mean and varian e . If omplex QPSK modulation is used the total noise varian e
is 2 . We dene the log-likelihood ratio k asso iated with ea h information bit dk as
P r(dk = 0jRk )
(2.3)
k =
P r(dk = 1jRk )
where P r(dk = ijRk ) is the a priori probability of the data bit dk with value i = 0; 1.
The a posteriori probability of a de oded data bit dk is
2
P r(dk = ijR1N ) =
where
i;m
k
N
i;m
k = P r (dk = i; Sk = mjR1 )
(2.4)
(2.5)
and m is a state index varying from 0 to 2 1, where is the en oder memory. For
example, = 2 for the en oder in Figure 2.3a. Combining (2.4) with (2.3) we have the
likelihood ratio as
X
X
k;m = k;m :
(2.6)
k =
0
The de oder makes a de ision based on the sign of the likelihood ratio
d^k =
0; k 1 :
1; k < 1
12
Using Bayes' rule (2.5) an be rewritten as

P r(dk = i; Sk = mjR1N ) = P r(dk = i; Sk = m; R1N )=P r(R1N )
= P r(Rk jdk = i; Sk = m; RkN )

1
P r(RkN+1jdk = i; Sk = m; Rk )
P r(dk = i; Sk = m; Rk )=P r(R1N ):
(2.7)
Sin e the events before time k do not depend on the observation after time k, the expression P r(Rk jdk = i; Sk = m; RkN ) an be simplied as
1
P r(R1k 1jdk = i; Sk = m; RkN ) = P r(R1k 1jSk = m) = km :
(2.8)
We dene this as the forward state metri km. Similarly, the expression P r(RkN jdk =
i; Sk = m; Rk ) an be rewritten as
+1
(i;m)
P r(RkN+1jdk = i; Sk = m; Rk ) = P r(RkN+1jSk+1 = f (i; m)) = kf+1
(2.9)
where f (i; m) is the next state given an input i and urrent state m. We dene this as
the reverse state metri km . We dene the bran h metri as
0
+1
P r(dk = i; Sk = m; Rk ) = ki;m :
(2.10)
Substituting (2.8), (2.9) and (2.10) into (2.7) we obtain

m i;m f (i;m)
N
i;m
k = k k k+1 =P r (R1 ):
(2.11)
The forward state metri km an be re ursively al ulated using

km = P r(R1k 1jSk = m)
1
X
j =0
) j;b(j;m)
kb(j;m
k 1
1
(2.12)
where b(j; m) is the state going ba kwards in time from state m given the input j . Figure
2.6 shows a graphi al representation of the al ulation of km.
13
time = k
;m)
0;b(0;m)
PPPP
PPq h
d

1

d
j =1

d
d
d
(11
b
time = k
PPPP
PPPP
PPPP
j = 0PPP
(01
b
;m)
m
k
;b(1;m)
Figure 2.6: The al ulation of km .

The ba kward state metri km an be re ursively al ulated in a similar fashion
using
0
+1
km = P r(RkN jSk = m)
1
X
j =0
(2.13)
(j;m)
kj;mkf+1
:
Figure 2.7 shows a graphi al representation of the al ulation of km. The bran h metri
ki;m an be al ulated using
ki;m = P r(dk = i; Sk = m; Rk )
= k ki exp[L (xk i + yk i;m)
(2.14)
where L = 2= , i;m is the oded bit given data bit dk = i and state Sk = m, ki =
P r(dk = i), xk and yk are the re eived symbol at time k, and k is a renormalisation
onstant. Substituting (2.14) into (2.11) we an evaluate (2.6) as
2
k
0
= k1 exp( L xk )
k
= k exp( Lx )k0
!
(0;m)
=
km exp(L yk 0;m )kf+1
14
!
(1;m)
km exp(L yk 1;m )kf+1
(2.15)
time = k
time = k + 1
h

;m
j = 0

d

)
h
d
i
P
PPPP
d
PPPPj = 1
PPPP
P PP
PPPP
;m
f (0;m)
k +1
d
d
d
Ph
f (1;m)
k +1
Figure 2.7: The al ulation of km .

where k = k =k is the input a priori likelihood ratio (z or z = ln k ), Lx = L xk and
k0 is the output extrinsi information for the turbo de oder (z 0 or z 0 = ln k0 ).
0
2.4.2
Log-MAP de oding algorithm
One way to redu e the omplexity of the MAP algorithm is to operate in the logarithm domain. In this way all the multipli ations and divisions be ome additions and
subtra tions [9, 10, 23. One problem of this method is the need to evaluate the sum of
all the exponentials. These operations an be simplied using the method des ribed in
[9, 10, where we an express the log expression as
a
b ln(e x + e y ) = min(x; y ) ln(1 + e jx yj):
(2.16)
From a rst look this fun tion may seem too omplex to implement due to the log and
exponential fun tion. If we plot the fun tion ln(1 + e x) versus x we nd that the value
falls exponentially to 10 at x 4, whi h is a small value that will not make mu h
dieren e in the nal output. Therefore it is possible to implement the fun tion with a
2
15
lookup table for the log(1 + e x) expression. We let

Lk =
ln k
Amk =
ln km
Bkm =
ln km
Dki;m =
ln ki;m:
Equations (2.6), (2.12) and (2.13) of the MAP algorithm be ome

Lk =
Amk =
B
m
k
2v
^1
m=0
1
j =0
1
^
j =0
where
A + Dk + B
0;m
m
k
f (0;m)
k+1
2v
^1
m=0
(1;m)
Amk + Dk1;m + Bkf+1
(2.17)
)
Akb(j;m
+ Dkj;b(1j;m)
1
(2.18)
(j;m)
Dkj;m + Bkf+1
(2.19)
n
^
j = 0
j =0
1
n :
The bran h metri in (2.14) be omes

Dki;m =
ln k ln ki L (xk i + yk i;m)
= Kk (zk + L xk )i L yk i;m
where zk = ln k is the log a priori probability and Kk =
(2.15) an now be expressed as
Lk = zk + L xk + zk0
ln k
ln k . Equation
0
(2.20)
where zk is the intrinsi information and zk0 = ln k0 is the extrinsi information.
It was mentioned in [10, 23 that an eight entry lookup table for log(1 + e x) is
su ient to guarantee almost ideal performan e. Figures 2.8 and 2.9 show the ee t of
lookup table size on BER performan e using QPSK for a PCCC and SCCC respe tively.
The maximum entry value was limited to 10. Entries above this value were set to zero. As
16
an be seen from the simulation results the degradation in BER performan e from using
an eight entry lookup table is very small (<0.1 dB) ompared to using exa t values. For
the PCCC ase, a four state rate 1/3 en oder (rate 1/2 onstituent ode g=f7 5g) with a
1024 bit S=16 S-random interleaver was used with eight iterations. For the SCCC ase,
a four state rate 1/3 en oder (rate 1/2 outer ode g=f7 5g and rate 2/3 inner ode h=f7
3 5g) with a 2048 bits S=20 S-random interleaver was used with eight iterations.
The Log-MAP algorithm will be used as the onstituent de oder for the rest of this
thesis with a 32 entry lookup table.
0
10
4 entries
8 entries
16 entries
32 entries
exact
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.2
1.4
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 2.8: Comparison of PCCC BER performan e for dierent lookup table sizes.
2.4.3
Max-log-MAP de oding algorithm
Equations (2.17), (2.18) and (2.19) an be further simplied by letting the fun tion
V
log(1 + e x) = 0 and repla ing all the fun tions by the min fun tion.
(0;m)
(1;m)
Lk = min
(Amk + Dk0;m + Bkf+1
) min
(Amk + Dk1;m + Bkf+1
)
m
m
(2.21)
)
)
Amk = min(Akb(0;m
+ Dk0;b(01 ;m) ; Akb(1;m
+ Dk1;b(11 ;m) )
1
1
(2.22)
(1;m)
(0;m)
; Dk1;m + Bkf+1
):
Bkm = min(Dk0;m + Bkf+1
(2.23)
17
10
4 entries
8 entries
16 entries
32 entries
exact
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.2
1.4
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 2.9: Comparison of SCCC BER performan e for dierent lookup table sizes.
This algorithm was rst used for the ISI hannel [24, 25 and later applied to the oding
hannel [26, 27. This algorithm has the same maximum likelihood performan e as the
Viterbi and SOVA algorithms but requires a larger omputation omplexity [26. In
turbo de oders, it performs slightly worse than MAP, but better than SOVA onstituent
de oders [26.
2.4.4
SOVA de oder
Traditionally, onvolutional odes were de oded by the Viterbi algorithm. The drawba k of the Viterbi algorithm is that it an only generate hard estimates of the de oded
symbols. This hard estimate will result in performan e loss when apply to multistage de oding, su h as turbo odes. To over ome this drawba k, the Viterbi de oding algorithm
was modied to generate a soft estimate on the de oded symbols so that it an be used
in iterative de oding. This modied Viterbi algorithm is alled the SOVA algorithm.
The SOVA algorithm was rst proposed in [16. It is a basi ally a modied version
of the Viterbi algorithm where the output sequen e is augmented with soft information.
18
Other s hemes of the modied Viterbi algorithm were introdu ed by other authors [16,
17, 18, 19, 28, 29.
The operation of the SOVA algorithm is similar to the hard-output Viterbi algorithm
[30. Rather than output a hard de ision value of the most likely ode symbol sequen e,
it produ es a soft output based on the likelihood of the ode symbol sequen e.
The soft output of the SOVA de oder at time t is obtained from the dieren e of the
minimum path metri among all the paths with symbol 0 at time t and the minimum path
metri among all the paths with symbol 1 at time t. The sign of the dieren e is used to
determine the hard estimate. The absolute value is used as the soft output information
for the next de oding stage.
The input to the SOVA algorithm is identi al to the Viterbi algorithm. For AWGN,
the bran h metri is al ulated based on the squared Eu lidean distan e between the
re eived sequen e and the modulated sequen e. The path metri is then onstru ted
based on the a umulated path metri from the previous state and the bran h metri
that leads to the urrent state. The path metri s are then ompared, with the minimum
path metri sele ted as the survivor. This is performed until the end of the re eived
sequen e is rea hed.
A tra e ba k from the end of the sequen e for the path with the minimum path
metri is then performed. This is the maximum likelihood sequen e. At the same time,
the dieren e between the maximum likelihood path and the omplementary path is
al ulated to obtain a soft output for the de oded symbol at time t. The de oding
operation is nished when it rea hes the beginning of the re eived sequen e.
A more in-depth explanation of the SOVA de oding algorithm is given in [31.
2.5 Iterative de oding of PCCCs and SCCCs

2.5.1
PCCC
Figure 2.5 shows the de oder stru ture for a PCCC. and are the interleaver
and deinterleaver, respe tively, whi h are used to reorganise the soft information between
1
19
the two onstituent de oders. The en oder stru ture in Figure 2.2 is used for en oding.
The Log-MAP algorithm des ribed in Se tion 2.4.2 is used as the onstituent de oder.
Unlike SCCCs, the CC an be de oded in any order provided that the orre t information is input into the MAP module. The operation of a PCCC is des ribed in Se tion
2.3.
Figure 2.10 shows the BER performan e of a four state rate 1/3 PCCC with a 10,000
bit pseudo-random interleaver and six iterations. Note that ea h CC should be terminated
0
10
10
iter 1
10
iter 2
BER
10
iter 3
4
10
iter 4
iter 5
10
10
iter 6
7
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Figure 2.10: BER performan e of a four state rate 1/3 PCCC, N=10,000.
to the zero state. The original turbo ode [1 s heme used dual termination, i.e., both CCs
terminated to the zero state. In [32 and [33 only one de oder was terminated while the
other de oder was set to the nal value of the forward re ursion . In [34 it was found
that if either de oders are not terminated then their respe tive 's should be initialised
to zero. This an a hieve performan e very lose to the dual termination s heme. We
all this the no termination s heme. In [34 it was found that the dieren es in BER
20
performan e between no termination, single termination and dual termination s hemes

are only obvious at BERs lower than 10 . Therefore, throughout this thesis, the no
termination s heme is used for all simulations.
To better illustrate the performan e of iterative de oding of PCCCs, we have simulated the transmission of a paragraph of plain text a ross an AWGN hannel with no
oding and ompared it to the output of a four state rate 1/2 PCCC (generator polynomial=f7 5g) with a 192 bit pseudo-random interleaver at Eb =N =1.5 dB. For this
simulation we use the 7 bit ASCII hara ter set to en ode ea h hara ter. On e 192 bits
of un oded data was olle ted, it was en oded by the PCCC en oder and transmitted
a ross an AWGN hannel using QPSK. We assume the re eiver has omplete knowledge
of the hannel and an pass the true soft de ision data to the PCCC de oder.
7
Original message:
To allow error free ommuni ation, error ontrol oding is used by adding redundant bits into the transmitted information sequen e. Turbo odes are a lass of
onvolutional error ontrol odes whi h an a hieve performan e lose to Shannon's
theoreti al \ oding barrier".
No oding:
D ill u erro free oimqny atign, erj r bontjml o$in'$is usee by0add ng"rddtneanp
bits into$the trao3mitvmD inf vmition!seq5en e. Turbo Mdds are$a*ahass!of" onvo
muvion eprnr kntrol /d s wh) h0 an a hieve"tOrformanse #loSe tm(Tje Shann/n's
th%ozeti al"" oding ji" iez"* D
First PCCC iteration:

D illf error&fvde` ki/u a atzon, eRr r ontJm| o$in' is tsee by aed ng feDtndant bip (into hu traosei ted inl eation sequen e.(Turbo /des are$a alass of
onvolutiola error ontvol /des v i h an aahive"tG2forMan e slose tm Shannon's
theorEti al " gd)ng b " I .
Third PCCC iteration:

21
illow error freep oiluni ation, error ontrol oling is used by aeding redundant bits
into the transmitted inf rmati n sequen e. Turbo odes are a lass of onvolutional
error ontrol odes whi h an a hieve PorforMan e lose tm Shannon's theoreti al
\ oding barrier".
Sixth PCCC iterations:
To allow error free ommuni ation, error ontrol oding is used by adding redundant bits into the transmitted information sequen e. Turbo odes are a lass of
onvolutional error ontrol odes whi h an a hieve performan e lose to Shannon's
theoreti al \ oding barrier".
As we an see, parts of the text are orre ted at ea h iteration. The orre t estimation
of these parts of the text helps the turbo de oder to orre t other parts of the text in
subsequent iterations.
2.5.2
SCCC
Figure 2.11 shows the de oder stru ture for an SCCC with the Log-MAP algorithm
as the onstituent de oder. Note that the de oding order of ea h CC is xed sin e the
outer ode is en oded before the inner ode. Therefore, the inner ode must be de oded
rst before the outer ode an be de oded.
The de oding of SCCCs is similar to that of PCCCs. The re eived symbols xI and yI
are fed into the inner de oder MAP I . At the rst iteration the extrinsi information zO
is set to 0. After de oding, the output extrinsi information L xI + zI0 is deinterleaved and
input into the outer de oder as a priori information L xO + zI . After de oding we have
output zI + L xO + zO0 . zI + L xO is subtra ted from the output of the se ond de oder
and interleaved before input to the inner de oder as extrinsi information zO for the next
iteration. Note that MAP O needs to provide outputs for both the data and parity bits,
while MAP I needs to provide outputs for the data bits only.
For the last iteration, a hard de ision is made on the output of the outer de oder
zI + L xO + zO0 . Figure 2.12 shows the BER vs Eb =N performan e of a four state rate
0
22
x ;y
I
MAPI
Lx
z0
Lx

-

6
?-
r?

Lx
MAPO

?

r

Figure 2.11: SCCC de oder stru ture.

1/3 SCCC with a 10,000 bit pseudo-random interleaver and six iterations.
Comparison of PCCCs and SCCCs
Figure 2.13 shows a omparison of BER performan e between a four state rate 1/3
PCCC and SCCC with six de oder iterations. As we an see, we have a trade o between
using PCCC and SCCC at dierent Eb =N . At Eb=N ranges between 0 to 0.9 dB, PCCC
performs better than SCCC. After 0.9 dB, the PCCC rea hes what is known as an \error
oor" or are, whi h in fa t is when the performan e of the PCCC is limited by the
free distan e of the turbo ode. However, the performan e of the SCCC is still in its
\waterfall" region where the performan e improves rapidly as Eb =N in reases. In fa t,
the are region of SCCCs is mu h lower than that of PCCCs. This makes it an attra tive
alternative to PCCCs if low BER performan e is required.
0
23
d^
2.5.3
z0
10
iter 1
iter 2
10
iter 3
2
10
iter 4
BER
10
10
iter 5
5
10
10
iter 6
7
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.2
1.4
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 2.12: BER performan e of a four state rate 1/3 SCCC, N=10,000.
2.6 Turbo odes with asymmetri omplexity

Typi al implementations of turbo odes use CCs with identi al omplexity. However,
there is no reason why we annot use CCs with dierent omplexity. In fa t, due to the
way that turbo odes work, by using dierent onstituent en oders we an a hieve better
performan e at a desired BER. A study on the performan e of asymmetri turbo odes
based on onstituent odes with dierent generator polynomials was presented in [35.
It was found that by mixing onstituent odes with both primitive and non-primitive
feedba k polynomials, one an a hieve better performan e than an be gained from both
types of feedba k polynomials. It was also found that asymmetri turbo odes have a
better FER than turbo odes with only primitive or non-primitive onstituent odes.
The de oding of turbo odes depends on the de oding performan e at ea h de oding
stage. Therefore, the performan e of ea h de oder will ae t the overall performan e of
the turbo de oder.
24
10
10
10
PCCC
SCCC
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 2.13: BER performan e omparison of four state rate 1/3 PCCC and SCCC,
N=10,000.
2.6.1
SCCC
SCCCs being similar to traditional on atenated odes, an have an inner and outer
outer ode with dierent omplexity. It was observed in [36 that the inner ode should
have as low omplexity as possible sin e the inner ode is working at very low Eb=N and
has the most onta t with the hannel.
0
2.6.2
PCCC
For PCCCs, it was found in [37 that at a BER range between 10 and 10 , turbo
odes an give better performan e with shorter memory onstituent odes and a simpler
de oding omplexity. However, the high are aused by the poor dmin of the onstituent
ode does not make them suitable for low BER appli ations.
The BER performan e of the onstituent odes improves as soon as the omplexity
in reases. However this improvement in performan e only o urs at higher Eb =N where
the improved free distan e starts to gain advantage. Therefore, in reasing the performan e
2
25
of ea h onstituent en oder should asymptoti ally improve the performan e of PCCCs.

One important point that should be onsidered is in whi h order the onstituent odes
should be de oded.
Figures 2.14 and 2.15 show the simulation results of an asymmetri PCCC with a
192 bit S-random interleaver with S=8 and six iterations. Figure 2.14 shows a PCCC
s heme with a mixture of four state and eight state CCs. As we an see, if the simpler
four state ode is the rst ode to be de oded, it has a large advantage in performan e
over de oding the more omplex eight state ode rst. This is due to the fa t that the
lower omplexity four state ode outperforms the higher omplexity eight state ode at
low Eb =N . One interesting ee t is that between 1.6 and 2.1 dB the four and eight state
mixed PCCC outperforms the eight state PCCC. This might be related to the rossover
region between the four state CC and eight state CC.
Figure 2.16 shows simulation results of a 192 bit rate 1/2 RSC with in reasing memory size. The generator polynomials of the rate 1/2 RSC are given in Table 2.1 [2, 3.
dfree is the minimum free Hamming distan e. d is the minimum Hamming distan e for
odewords with input weight two. As we an see, below 0 dB the simplest memory one
ode outperforms all the other more omplex odes. Note that their performan e rosses
over ea h other after about 0 dB with the most omplex memory 4 ode outperforming
all the other odes [38. Therefore, in the performan e of PCCCs, we will also expe t a
ross over between de oding the more omplex and less omplex ode at high Eb=N .
0
g0 g1 dfree d2
2 3 2
4 7 5
8 13 17
16 23 33
32 45 77
3
5
6
7
8
3
6
8
12
20
Table 2.1: Rate 1/2 RSC generator polynomials.

As we an see in Figure 2.15, in the region lose to an Eb =N of 1.8 dB, de oding
the two state ode rst gives better performan e than de oding the four state ode rst.
0
26
10
s1=4, s2=4
s1=8, s2=4
s1=4, s2=8
1
2
s =8, s =8
3
BER
10
10
10
10
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
Eb/No (dB)
2.2
2.4
2.6
2.8
Figure 2.14: PCCC BER performan e with asymmetri omplexity CC, mixture of four
state and eight state odes, 192 bit interleaver, six iterations.
1
10
s1=2, s2=2
s1=4, s2=2
1
2
s =2, s =4
s1=4, s2=4
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 2.15: PCCC BER performan e with asymmetri omplexity CC, mixture of two
state and four state odes, 192 bit interleaver, six iterations.
27
10
s=2
s=4
s=8
s=16
1
BER
10
10
10
10
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 2.16: BER performan e of rate 1/2 RSC with memory lengths 1,2,3 and 4.
However, after 2.1 dB, the performan e starts to rossover and de oding the more omplex
four state ode rst gives better performan e. The ode rate dieren e is 10 log 3/2 =
1.76 dB, whi h is lose to the rossover point.
2.7 Con lusion

In this hapter we des ribed the stru ture of turbo oded systems. We looked at de oding algorithms that an be used by a turbo oded system and we des ribed the MAP
algorithms that an be used in turbo de oders. Two types of on atenation method were
reviewed, PCCC and SCCC. Both methods use similar de oding algorithms, although
the en oder and de oder stru tures are very dierent. This leads to dierent BER performan e at dierent Eb=N . This should be taken into a ount when spe ifying a turbo
ode. If the system is power limited then PCCCs should be used due to their good performan e at low Eb =N . However, the high are makes it less attra tive if a low BER
performan e is required. SCCCs an a hieve better performan e ompared to PCCCs at
higher Eb =N due to its mu h lower are.
0
28
Chapter 3
Constituent odes for PCCC
de oders.
3.1 Introdu tion
A PCCC is a parallel on atenation of two or more onvolutional odes. Therefore,
the hara teristi of ea h omponent ode is important in order to improve the performan e of Turbo odes. A ommon way of measuring the performan e of onvolutional
odes is to nd their distan e spe trum.
Although numerous ode sear hes for good onstituent odes for PCCCs have been
performed, most of the results are based on maximising the input weight two free distan e of the ode. In order to further improve the performan e we should also minimise
the number of nearest neighbours. In this hapter we will look at some of the suitable
onstituent odes that are sele ted based on a dierent set of riteria ompared to other
published results.
3.2 Generating the distan e spe trum

This se tion des ribes dierent methods of nding the distan e spe trum of a memory length rate k=n onvolutional ode. The rst method involves using the state
diagram of the onvolutional ode to nd the generating fun tion T (X ) of the ode. The
generating fun tion gives the distan e spe trum of a onvolutional ode. Sin e it is a
rational polynomial expression, it an generate a distan e spe trum up to innity. The
29
se ond method uses an exhaustive sear h method based on the Viterbi algorithm. This
involves nding error paths that diverge from the all zero odeword by extending the
trellis of the onstituent onvolutional ode. This method is more suitable for omputer
implementation and it an generate the spe tral lines of interest e iently.
Note that the distan e spe trum we des ribe in this se tion are semi-innite, i.e.,
the distan e spe trum an be extended for as long as the input information sequen e is
required. This is dierent from the nite distan e spe trum that is required by turbo
odes due to the presen e of a nite length interleaver in the turbo en oder. The length
of the interleaver limits the length of the distan e spe trum required. The pro ess of how
to apply the semi-innite distan e spe trum to turbo odes is overed in Se tion 3.3.
Before we go any further, we will need a brief understanding of the distan e spe trum
of onvolutional odes and PCCCs.
3.2.1
Constituent PCCC en oder
Convolutional odes were rst introdu ed as an alternative to blo k odes [39. Dierent de oding s hemes su h as sequential [40, 41, threshold [42 and maximum likelihood
[40, 41 have been used to de ode onvolutional odes.
It is known that the asymptoti performan e of onvolutional odes for AWGN an be
improved by maximising the free distan e of the distan e spe trum [40. The free distan e
of a linear ode is determined by the smallest non-zero output weight of a onvolutional
ode's distan e spe trum. However, due to the presen e of an interleaver, it is extremely
di ult to nd the distan e spe trum of a PCCC. To over ome this, the weight spe trum
of a PCCC is found by averaging the weight spe trum over all interleavers, alled an
\uniform" interleaver [43. The basi idea is to ombine the distan e spe tra of the two
onstituent odes to reate a super spe tra whi h ontains all possible ombinations of
all the paths. Ea h element of this super spe tra is averaged based on the size of the
interleaver and the size of the ombined error path. We will look in more detail of this
method later in the hapter. Due to this new te hnique, it was found in [43, 44 that we
need to alter the desired hara teristi of the onstituent onvolutional odes in order to
30
suit the hara teristi s of PCCCs.

It was shown in [43, 44 that the rst term in the ombined distan e spe trum of a
PCCC with a uniform interleaver is proportional to
N1
dw
X df
(3.1)
where N is the interleaver size, dw is the weight of the input information sequen e that
generates the ode sequen e of output ode weight df , and X is the bran h gain for an
output ode sequen e with weight df .
Note that we an only minimise this rst term for N ! 1 if dw 2. When dw = 2
we get a multipli ation fa tor of N in the nal distan e spe trum, whi h will result in
the distan e spe trum being averaged based on the interleaver size. In [44 this pro ess is
alled spe tral thinning or interleaver gain in [43. For other spe trum terms proportional
to N d X d where d0w > dw or d0f > df , the spe trum terms will have less ontribution
to the bound as SNR in reases. Therefore, the main ontribution at high SNR is from
the rst term of the distan e spe trum.
Note that for the ase when dw = 1 the 1=N fa tor disappears from (3.1). This means
the size of the interleaver no longer has any ee t on the spe tral density of the distan e
spe trum. Thus, we want to avoid any ontribution from input information weight one
odewords.
For non-re ursive onvolutional en oders, it is possible to generate a low weight
output for an input information weight one information word. A weight one information
word input into a non-re ursive onvolutional en oder will always be self-terminating [45
(i.e., remerge with the all zeros path with weight one input information word). Sin e a
PCCC only permutes the information bits, a weight one input will always generate error
events of low weight for both onstituent odes, no matter how it is permuted. Therefore,
onvolutional en oders with nite impulse responses are not suitable for PCCCs where we
want to use the interleaver to provide us with diversity between ea h onstituent en oder.
On the other hand, re ursive systemati onvolutional (RSC) en oders when using
feedba k polynomials require a nonzero number of bits to return the en oder to the all
1
31
zero state. That is, all information words will have a weight that is two or greater.
Sin e only a small fra tion of these inputs generate low weight ode words, the han e
that a low weight input for one onstituent ode will generate a low weight odeword for
the other ontituent ode is greatly redu ed. That is, the interleaver is said to breakup
low weight odewords from one onstituent ode to high weight ode words of the other
onstituent ode. This basi ally eliminates the problem of a self-terminating weight one
input information sequen e that the interleaver annot breakup.
For re ursive odes we need to onsider weight two or higher self-terminating input
information words whi h an produ e a low weight output odeword. In [44, it was
said that with the help of an interleaver between ea h en oder, most of the low weight
self-terminating input information words will have a higher han e of being broken-up
to produ e an output odeword that is of high weight at the se ond en oder. Also,
all the high weight input information words, after permuting, will have a mu h higher
han e of being broken-up than those of lower weight. Therefore, the performan e mainly
depends on the weight of the output odeword generated by the input information word
of lowest weight. For the ase of RSCs, the lowest possible input information weight that
an generate a self-terminating sequen e is the weight two input information sequen e.
Hen e, the problem of nding good odes for PCCCs lies in nding onstituent re ursive
en oders that have maximum output weight for weight two input sequen es. We all these
input sequen es the ee tive free distan e [43 of turbo en oders, as ompared to the free
distan e of a onvolutional ode.
3.2.2
State diagram of onvolutional odes
The stru ture of a onvolutional ode is essentially a state ma hine whi h an be

represented by either a state diagram or trellis. The state diagram and the trellis both
des ribe the transition from the urrent state to the next state given a ertain input.
The ode transfer fun tion is given in the form [41
A(W; Z ) =
w=1 j =df ree
32
Aw;j W w Z j
(3.2)
where A(W; Z ) is the number of output weight j ode words generated by an input
information word of weight w.
For the re ursive onvolutional en oder in Figure 3.1 we an derive the state diagram
and its trellis as shown in Figure 3.2.
d
D
c
Figure 3.1: En oder stru ture for a (2,1,2) RSC ode with generator polynomials f7,5g .
8
In the trellis diagram ea h path is onne ted between a starting state S and ending
state S 0 with an (input information word/output ode word) pair asso iate with ea h
path. For the state diagram, ea h transition from one state to another has a ertain input
weight W and output weight Z asso iated with it. This basi ally des ribes the weight
of the input odeword that aused the transition and the weight of the output odeword
generated. Hen e the transition from state S 0 to S 2 of the rate 1/2 RSC ode is aused
by a weight one input W whi h generates a weight two output Z .
Note that the state diagram is a losed graph, i.e., it does not onvey information for
the beginning and ending states whi h is required in order to analyse error paths. Sin e
all error paths diverge from the zero state and remerge with the zero state, we an modify
the state diagram by splitting the zero state to a starting state and ending state (note that
splitting the zero state only works for linear odes and odes with ertain symmetries).
This is alled a modied state diagram. The modied state diagram of the rate 1/2 ode
is given in Figure 3.3.
2
3.2.3
State Transition Matrix
This method uses the modied state diagram to nd the distan e spe trum of the
ode [46 by deriving the state transition matrix A from the state diagram. A state
33
1
S
d/dc
0/00
00
00
S0
1/11
ZW
ZW
1/11
01
01
0/00
1/10
1
S1
10
S2
10
ZW
0/01
0/01
11
11
1/10
Z
S3
Trellis Structure
ZW
State Diagram
Figure 3.2: Trellis stru ture and state diagram for a (2,1,2) RSC en oder with generator
polynomials f7,5g .
8
ZW
S3
Z
ZW
ZW
ZW
S0
S2
S1
1
Figure 3.3: Modied state diagram of Figure 3.2.

34
S0
transition matrix ontains all the parameters going from one state to another. By writing
out the state equations in a matrix form we an nd the generating fun tion by solving
the state equation going into the terminal state S 00. Note that the state transition matrix
an be also be solved by using Mason's formula [47.
The state transition equation is given in the following form
x = x + x0
(3.3)
M = 2
xT = (x1 xM )
(x )T = (x xM )
0
0
1
xM
6
xM
= 66 ..
... ...
4
.
xS xS xM
S
x11
x12
x21
x22
00
00
00
1
1
xS1 0
xS2 0
...
xSS 00
0
0
3
7
7
7
5
0
0
where xi is the path gain from state S 0 to state Si and xji is the path gain from state j to i.
is the state transition matrix whi h des ribes the distan e and input weight generated
when going from one state to another. x ontains the distan e and input information
weight generated by going from state zero. From the example in Figure 3.3 we obtain the
following state transition matrix and x .
0
2
6
= 64
0
1
0
Z 2W
ZW
0
0 0
ZW 0
0 0
Z
3
7
7
5
6 Z 2W
; x0 = 6
4
0
7
7
5
and x = 64
After expanding the matrix we obtain the following four equations

x1 = ZW x1 + Zx3
x2 = x1 + Z 2 W
x3 = Z 2 x2 + ZW x3
x4 = Z 2 W x1 = A(W; Z ):
35
x1
x2
x3
x4
3
7
7
5
By solving A(W; Z ) for x we an nd the generating fun tion for our (2,1,2) RSC ode,
whi h is
4
Z 5 W 2 (Z + W Z 2 W )
1 2ZW + Z 2W 2 Z 2
= Z 5W 2(W + Z + ZW 2 + Z 2 (3W + W 3) + )
A(W; Z ) = x4 =
= Z W + Z W + Z W + 3Z W + Z W + :
5
The polynomial above shows that we have one path with output distan e 5 whi h is
generated by a weight 3 input sequen e, i.e., Z W , et . Note that A(W; Z ) is an innite
polynomial, whi h means that the spe trum of the ode is innite. By using the transfer
fun tion method des ribed above we an nd the entire spe trum of the onstituent ode.
However, as we an see it is not easy to implement. In the next se tion we will des ribe
a method that is more suitable for implementation.
5
3.2.4
Unidire tional Algorithm
Dierent to the method in Se tion 3.2.3, the unidire tional algorithm [48 makes
use of the trellis instead of the modied state diagram. Essentially, the uni-dire tional
algorithm is similar to the Viterbi algorithm. Rather than nding the survivor path at
ea h state of the trellis, all paths are extended until at least one path re-merges with
the all zeros path. The input and output weights of the re-merged paths are stored to
form the weight spe trum. This method is more suitable for omputer implementation
sin e it is similar to the Viterbi algorithm. Here we will brie y des ribe the unidire tional
algorithm.
The algorithm begins by extending all the paths that start from state zero at t=0
that do not terminate at the zero state. We then move to the next trellis se tion and
extend all the paths that were extended in the last trellis se tion. If one of the paths
remerges with the zero state, the a umulated input and output weights of that path are
re orded. Otherwise, the rest of the paths are extended until some limit is rea hed. This
limit is usually dened to be when all the metri s ex eed some distan e. Figure 3.4 shows
the unidire tional algorithm for the rst six trellis se tions.
36
Input weight
Output weight
S
0/0
1/2
00
00
1/2
01
01
0/0
1/1
10
10
0/1
0/1
1/1
11
11
3/5
2/6
4/6,3/7
3/7(2),4/8
1/4
3/4,2/5
2/5(2),3/6
1/6...
2/3
1/4
1/3
2/4
2/4,3/5
1/5
t=2
t=3
t=4
t=5
0/0
2/8...
00
2/3
01
10
1/2
11
t=0
t=1
Figure 3.4: Trellis se tions of unidire tional algorithm.
37
t=6
t=7
For trellises that have parallel paths this method is more suitable for omputer implementation. Therefore, this method was sele ted. To simplify the sear h the feedba k
polynomial was limited to only primitive polynomials. This is due to the fa t that re ursive onvolutional odes will have maximum period if the feedba k polynomial is primitive
[44. This will give a maximum period of 2 1. Hen e, h or g has to be primitive. A
list of primitive polynomials for dierent en oder memory lengths are given in [49.
We denote the minimum output weight of ea h remerged path, aused by input weight
i, as di . From Figure 3.4 we have one d = 5 (input weight three output weight ve) path
at t=2 and one d = 6 path at t=3. Note that it is possible to have a multiple number of
remerges that have the same input weight and output weight, su h as the d = 7 path at
t=6. We all this the multipli ity, or the number of neighbours. It is represented by Ni ,
for an input weight i.
0
3.3 Average upper bound based on uniform interleaver

Due to the random nature of the interleaver it is impra ti al to nd the union bound
of the bit error probability for PCCCs that in ludes all possible ombinations of error
paths from ea h onstituent ode. Therefore, an average upper bound was proposed
based on the on ept of an uniform interleaver [43, 44. An uniform interleaver of length
N is a probabilisti
devi e that permutes an input
weight
w information word to all

N . The resultant bound is the
ombinations
with
probability
1/
distin t N
w
w
performan e averaged over all possible interleaver hoi es. In other words, the bound
proves the existen e of at least one interleaver with at least the spe ied performan e.
We will look at ways of generating good interleavers in Chapter 4. For randomly hosen
interleavers, the average bound gives an approximate performan e measure of PCCCs.
The average bound for SCCCs [13 and hybrid on atenated onvolutional odes (HCCCs)
[50 is also available.
Here, we brie y des ribe a method of generating the average upper bound for PCCCs
38
given in [43. First, we need to dene the input-redundan y weight enumerating fun tion
(IRWEF) of an (n; k) systemati onvolutional ode C as
AC (W; Z )
w;j
(3.4)
ACw;j W w Z j
where ACw;j denotes the number of output odewords generated by an input information
word of Hamming weight w with Hamming weight j output parity bits. W and Z are
dummy variables for the information and parity bits. The value of ACw;j an be obtained
from (3.2). This fun tion des ribes the ontributions of information and parity bits to the
total Hamming weight of the output odeword, whi h is (w + j ) for a systemati ode.
From the IRWEF, we an obtain the onditional weight enumerating fun tion (CWEF)
of the CC

X
1
w AC (W; Z )
C
C
j
Aw (Z ) = Aw;j Z =
:
w!
W w W
j
=1
The nite length of an interleaver ee tively makes the onstituent onvolutional ode
a blo k ode. Therefore, we need to nd the CWEF representation of the onstituent
onvolutional ode based on the equivalent blo k ode. The equivalent blo k ode representation of a onvolutional ode is obtained by nding all ombinations of a set of error
events of the onvolutional ode within a length equal to N. The blo k equivalent CWEF
of the onvolutional ode is [43
ACw (Z ) =
Aw;j Z j
with
Aw;j
K [m; nTw;j;m;n
(3.5)
m;n
where mmin m N , 1 n bm=mmin , mmin is the shortest length error path and

N
m
+
n
K [m; n =
:
n
K [m; n is the expression for the multipli ity of the output odewords produ ed by a single
ombination of n error events with total length m. Tw;j;m;n is the number of on atenated
39
paths in the trellis produ ed by an input information sequen e of weight w and output
parity weight j with length m and n remerges with the zero state. Note that the n
remerges are subje t to the onstraint that they leave the zero state immediately after
remerging.
We an now obtain the CWEF of a PCCC by using the uniform interleaver on ept
we mentioned previously. The uniform interleaver makes the CWEF of the se ond CC
independent of the rst CC. Therefore, we an express the CWEF of a PCCC as the
produ t of the CWEFs of two CCs
ACwp (Z ) =
ACw1 (Z ) ACw2 (Z )

:
N
w
(3.6)
Finally, the bit error probability of a PCCC based on the uniform interleaver is upper
bounded by [43, 44
Pb
(2n
1)N
2d REb
wd
Q
N
d=df ree
X
N0
(3.7)
where n is the number of ode bits of the onstituent ode and N is the interleaver size.
Also, d = w + j is the Hamming weight of the output odeword generated by an input
information word of Hamming weight wd and R is the overall ode rate of the turbo ode.
The value of wd is obtained from the super distan e spe tra al ulated from (3.6).
For high Eb=N (bit error rate 10 ), the performan e is dominated by the rst
term of the bound. Hen e, we an simplify (3.7) to
5
Pb
wfree
Q
N
RE
2dfree N b
0
where
dfree=ee tive free distan e of the turbo ode.
wfree=Hamming weight of the information sequen es ausing the free
distan e odewords.
40
(3.8)
As we an see from (3.8), in order to minimise Pb we should minimise the Q fun tion.
Sin e the Q fun tion is a negative exponential fun tion, we should maximise dfree for a
given ode rate R and Eb=N . For a xed interleaver size N we should also minimise
wfree. For PCCCs, the ee tive free distan e is dependent on the free distan e generated
by weight two input information sequen es (sin e the interleaver annot breakup input
information weight one sequen es). Therefore, to minimise the bit error probability of
PCCCs we should maximise d and minimise N of the onstituent onvolutional ode.
0
3.4 Trun ated union bound

The union bound expression given in (3.7) requires all possible ombinations of error
paths in the super distan e spe tra to be al ulated. This is not pra ti al for interleaver
sizes above 100 bits. Therefore, to simplify the bound al ulation we trun ate the distan e
spe tra to only in ludes all distan e terms up to approximately twi e d . We all the
resultant bound the trun ated union bound.
One problem with su h a trun ated bound is that the result does not ne essary re e t
the true union bound due to some omponents of the distan e spe tra not being in luded.
In [43 it was found that the ee t on the union bound due to trun ation is non-existant
after a BER of around 10 . Sin e the union bound is usually tight for BER lower than
10 [43, in the area of interest (BER of less than 10 ) the trun ated union bound
should give us results that is very lose to the union bound.
2
3.5 Minimising number of nearest neighbours

In this se tion we will look at the ee t of minimising the number of nearest neighbours for the onstituent ode of a turbo ode. The performan e of onvolutional odes
depends highly on the hoi e of generator polynomials. As mentioned before, good sele tion riteria for PCCCs are to maximise d as well as minimise N (similar to maximising
dfree and minimising Nfree for trellis odes) [51.
2
41
min.
not min.
13
15
17
13
07
17
5(1)
4(1)
5(2)
4(2)
dmin
4(1)
4(3)
Table 3.1: Generator polynomials with dierent number of neighbours.

In Table 3.1 we list two dierent generator polynomials for an eight state, rate 2/3
systemati onvolutional en oder that have the same input information weight 2 ee tive
free distan e, but dierent number of nearest neighbours. The distan e terms d and d are
the minimum Hamming weight paths for information weight two and three, respe tively.
The distan e term dmin is the minimum free distan e of the ode. The numbers in bra kets
next to the distan e terms are the number of neighbours for that distan e term (N ; N
and Nmin , respe tively). All the ode polynomials, h ; : : : ; hn , where n is the number
of oded bits, are expressed in o tal notation, e.g., 13 = 1011 D + D + 1.
2
The se ond generator polynomial f13,07,17g has a larger number of nearest neighbours at d , dmin and d . The trun ated union bound and simulation results of both
of these odes for a rate 1/2 PCCC en oder with a 400 (S=10) and 4096 (S=25) bit
S-symmetri interleaver [7 and six de oder iterations are shown in Figures 3.5 and 3.6,
respe tively. As we an see for both interleaver sizes, the onstituent ode with a smaller
number of neighbours performs better than the one with more neighbours at low BER;
even-though they have very small dieren es in distan e proles. This indi ates that
the number of nearest neighbours an have an impa t on the performan e of PCCCs,
espe ially at low BER.
2
The trun ated union bound in Figures 3.5 and 3.6 in ludes all distan e terms up to
approximately twi e d . This is used for all the bounds generated in this thesis, ex ept
for odes where d is greater than 60, where all distan e terms up to d are used.
2
Figures 3.5 and 3.6 also show a large dieren e in performan e between a suboptimum de oder with a parti ular interleaver and the trun ated union bound for a uniform
interleaver. Due to a nite number of terms the bound at low Eb =N does not diverge at
the ut-o rate. At high Eb=N , the performan e is limited by the free distan e at the
0
42
ode. In this ase, even with sub-optimum de oding, the parti ular interleaver hosen
performs better than the bound at high Eb=N (where the bound is a urate). Even with
quite dierent performan e results for dierent interleavers, the ee t of minimising N
appears to be valid.
0
10
min N
2
not min N2
1
10
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
3.5
Figure 3.5: Trun ated union bound and BER performan e of rate 1/2 PCCC using eight
state rate 2/3 onstituent en oders, N=400 and 6 de oder iterations.
3.6 Ee tive free distan e and minimum distan e

It was shown in Se tion 3.3 that for `average' PCCCs the free distan e is determined
by weight two input information sequen es. However, there are often more than one
generator polynomial having the same d and N . Therefore, after maximising d and
minimising N we an use further riteria to determine the best ode. A logi al hoi e
is to maximise either d or dmin and minimise their respe tive neighbours, N and Nmin .
We an illustrate this with three dierent eight state, rate 2/3 systemati onvolutional
odes in Table 3.2. Ea h ode was sele ted based on dierent maximisation riteria; the
2
43
10
min N2
not min N2
1
10
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Figure 3.6: Trun ated union bound and BER performan e of rate 1/2 PCCC using eight
state rate 2/3 onstituent en oders, N=4096 and 6 de oder iterations.
rst ode based on d , the se ond on dmin and the third d .
2
max.
max.
dmin
max.
dmin
13
15
17
5(1)
4(1)
4(1)
13
11
17
4(1)
4(1)
5(6)
17
07
13
4(3)
4(3)
>10
Table 3.2: Eight state rate 2/3 onstituent odes that were sear hed a ording to dierent
riteria.
These odes were simulated using the standard PCCC stru ture with a 400 bit (S=10)
and 4096 bit (S=25) S-symmetri interleaver and six iterations. The average bound and
simulation performan e are presented in Figures 3.7 and 3.8. The solid lines represent
bound results and the dashed lines represent simulation results.
As an be seen from both simulation results, at a BER of 10 the ode with maximum d performs better then the other two. The maximised dmin ode is only slightly
6
44
10
Max. d2
Max d
min
Max d
10
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
3.5
Figure 3.7: Trun ated union bound and BER performan e between dierent riteria of
maximisation for N=400 and 6 de oder iterations.
0
10
max. d2
max. d
min
max. d
3
10
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Figure 3.8: Trun ated union bound and BER performan e between dierent riteria of
maximisation for N=4096 and 6 de oder iterations.
45
worse than the rst ode. The ode that maximised d performs mu h worse than the
other two, even-though they have the same dmin and d . Thus, our sele tion riteria is to
nd the ode with the best d , followed by dmin, and then by d .
3
3.7 Results
In [52 a list of the best rate 1/n and k/(k+1) polynomials were given. The sele tion
riteria for the best polynomials was based on maximising d only. We extend the results
to maximise d as well as minimise N . Extra riteria were used to separate the best
odes if multiple odes with identi al d and N exist. Examples of eight state rate 1/2
and rate 2/3 en oder stru tures are given in Figures 3.9 and 3.10, respe tively.
2
m
+m
g
?g -r 6rg -r 6rg -r
x- +m
r
D
D
D
g
g
g
g
?
?
?
rg - +m g - +m g - +m g - y
- +?m - +?m - +?m- y
+
00
10
01
02
03
11
12
13
20
21
22
23
Figure 3.9: En oder stru ture for rate 1/n RSC onstituent ode (eight state rate 1/3
example).
rh rh rh rh - y
-y
r
r
r
xh r
h
h
h

??- -
??- -
??- -
??-r
+
+
+
+
y
D
D
D

6h
6rh
6rh
h
x1
13
12
11
23
22
03
21
02
10
20
01
00
Figure 3.10: En oder stru ture for rate k/(k+1) systemati feedba k onvolutional ode
(eight state rate 2/3 example).
Here we list the best generator polynomials for various rate 1/n and rate k/(k+1)
onstituent odes. Note that for the ase of rate k/(k+1), the en oder stru ture is more
46
ommonly refered to as a systemati feedba k onvolutional ode. The ode sear h was
performed using the unidire tional Viterbi algorithm with the following order of sele tion:
d ; N ; dmin ; Nmin ; d ; N . In the following tables m is the memory size of the en oder.
The trellis size is equal to 2m. Note that g and gi (i = 1; 2; 3; ) are the feedba k and
feedforward polynomials for rate 1/n onstituent en oders. h and hi (i = 1; 2; 3; ) are
the feedba k and feedforward polynomials for rate k/(k+1) onstituent en oders.
The order of ode sele tion is dierent from those presented in [2 where the sele tion
order was d ; N ; d ; N ; d ; N ; d ; N . The goal of our sele tion is to a hieve the best
performan e at high Eb =N , where the performan e is dominated by the minimum distan e
of the PCCC ode. Therefore, asymptoti ally our odes should a hieve the same or better
performan e than those published. In Tables 3.3 to 3.11, represents odes that are in
[52 and represents odes that are in [2. Note that the k/(k+1) en oder stru ture in
[2 is dierent to that presented here, but they should have similar distan e spe trum
properties. The distan e spe trum of the original pun tured turbo ode [1 is given in
Table 3.4 () for referen e.
2
1+
+
3 +
4 +

2
+
6+
dmin
3(1)
3(1)
5(6)
6(1)
5(1)
6(1)
13
17
6(1)
8(1)
7(3)
23
37
6(1)
12(1)
8(3)
23
33
7(2)
12(1)
23
35
7(2)
75
53
8(1)
67
45
45
7(1)
8(1)
6(1)
9(9)
8(1)
6(1)
10(14)
8(1)
7(1)
8(4)
7(1)
10(6)
12(1)
7(1)
8(3)
7(1)
10(8)
20(1)
9(1)
8(1)
9(7)
10(5)
8(3)
20(1)
10(2)
8(1)
8(2)
10(5)
77
8(2)
20(1)
9(3)
8(1)
11(14)
8(1)
45
67
8(3)
20(1)
8(2)
8(1)
10(6)
10(5)
147
101
7(1)
36(1)
13(1)
8(1)
7(1)
10(2)
147
135
10(12)
36(1)
12(1)
10(1)
10(6)
10(4)
155
117
10(11)
36(1)
10(1)
10(1)
10(4)
10(3)
313
275
10(1)
68(1)
15(1)
12(3)
11(6)
10(1)
Table 3.3: Best rate 1/2 onstituent odes.
47

3
4

2
dmin
2(1)
2(1)
6(4)
9(4)
3(1)
4(3)
3(1)
4(1)
5(1)
13
15
4(3)
5(2)
4(2)
4(1)
6(10)
6(1)
6(2)
23
33
5(7)
6(1)
5(5)
6(19)
5(2)
6(3)
23
35
4(1)
6(1)
4(1)
6(13)
6(5)
6(1)
23
31
4(1)
7(2)
4(1)
6(3)
6(1)
37
21
4(4)
4(3)
5(2)
4(1)
5(2)
6(2)
67
45
5(1)
11(2)
6(2)
6(4)
5(1)
7(6)
147
165
6(7)
19(2)
6(2)
6(2)
6(2)
6(1)
147
117
5(1)
19(2)
7(2)
5(1)
6(1)
7(2)
367
255
6(3)
35(2)
8(1)
7(2)
6(3)
7(4)
Table 3.4: Best rate 2/3 pun tured rate 1/2 onstituent odes with pun turing pattern
[1 0.
m
1+
+
5
+
6
dmin
5(1)
8(2)
8(1)
8(1)
10(1)
12(1)
14(1)
7(1)
10(1)
7(1)
8(1)
9(1)
10(1)
17
10(3)
14(1)
10(2)
10(1)
14(6)
14(2)
17
17
8(1)
14(1)
11(3)
8(1)
13(9)
10(1)
23
25
37
11(1)
22(1)
11(1)
12(2)
15(4)
12(1)
23
33
37
10(1)
22(1)
12(1)
10(1)
12(1)
14(2)
23
27
35
11(1)
22(1)
11(1)
12(2)
13(3)
14(2)
67
45
57
13(2)
38(1)
15(1)
14(2)
13(2)
14(1)
67
45
51
11(1)
38(1)
17(2)
16(6)
11(1)
14(2)
155
117
127
15(2)
70(1)
15(1)
18(1)
15(1)
16(3)
147
101
115
11(1)
70(1)
23(1)
14(1)
11(1)
16(2)
5(1)
13
15
13
2+
3+

m
1+
+
3 +
4
+

2
dmin
6(1)
6(1)
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
7(1)
7(1)
10(2)
10(1)
10(1)
14(2)
16(1)
18(1)
13
11
15
17
12(1)
20(1)
12(1)
14(1)
18(2)
20(3)
23
33
37
25
15(1)
32(1)
15(1)
16(2)
17(1)
18(1)
23
27
35
37
14(1)
32(1)
16(1)
14(1)
18(3)
18(1)
23
33
27
37
14(1)
32(1)
16(1)
14(1)
16(1)
20(3)
23
35
33
37
14(1)
32(1)
16(1)
14(1)
16(1)
20(3)
75
45
57
67
18(3)
56(1)
20(1)
18(2)
18(1)
22(2)
67
51
45
71
15(1)
56(1)
23(1)
20(3)
15(1)
20(2)

48
dmin
8(1)
8(1)
12(2)
12(1)
12(1)
16(1)
18(1)
20(1)
13
11
15
16
17
15(1)
24(1)
15(1)
16(1)
23(2)
22(1)
23
25
27
35
37
19(1)
42(1)
19(1)
20(1)
23(3)
20(1)
23
27
33
35
37
18(1)
42(1)
20(1)
18(1)
20(1)
24(1)
1+
+
3 +
4 +

5+
6+
2
dmin
2(1)
2(1)
6(4)
9(4)
3(1)
4(3)
3(1)
4(1)
5(1)
6(1)
13
15
17
4(1)
5(1)
4(1)
5(1)
6(6)
6(1)
23
35
27
5(3)
8(2)
5(3)
6(9)
7(29)
6(1)
23
35
33
5(4)
8(2)
5(3)
6(10)
5(1)
6(1)
75
51
73
6(11)
12(2)
6(3)
6(3)
6(5)
8(54)
147
133
135
6(5)
20(2)
8(4)
6(3)
6(2)
8(22)
147
101
131
6(2)
20(2)
7(3)
6(1)
7(10)
6(1)
1+

3
4

2
5+
dmin
5(6)
3(3)
3(3)
4(7)
5(16)
6(41)
3(3)
3(3)
4(7)
5(16)
6(44)
4(5)
4(1)
4(3)
4(1)
5(7)
6(19)
35
4(1)
5(1)
4(1)
5(7)
5(3)
6(13)
31
35
4(1)
5(1)
4(1)
5(7)
5(3)
6(11)
21
35
37
4(1)
5(1)
4(1)
5(9)
5(4)
6(12)
23
31
32
37
4(7)
6(3)
4(5)
4(2)
6(69)
6(33)
75
53
57
67
5(8)
9(2)
5(2)
5(5)
5(1)
6(7)
45
51
63
71
5(9)
9(2)
5(2)
5(5)
5(2)
6(6)
2(3)
2(3)
3(6)
3(6)
13
11
15
17
23
25
33
23
27
23
49
7(1)
dmin
2(2)
2(2)
2(1)
2(1)
2(1)
16
17
17
11
35
27
23
35
23
4(35)
6(453)
4(26)
5(76)
6(238)
2(1)
3(7)
4(17)
5(54)
6(205)
3(1)
4(2)
3(1)
4(8)
5(42)
6(179)
3(1)
4(3)
3(1)
4(7)
5(41)
6(177)
37
31
4(7)
5(2)
4(4)
4(3)
5(14)
6(86)
21
37
31
4(8)
5(2)
4(4)
4(4)
5(22)
6(82)
35
33
37
31
4(11)
5(2)
4(6)
4(5)
5(12)
6(82)
23
25
27
31
35
4(7)
5(2)
4(4)
4(3)
5(18)
6(78)
75
53
57
67
71
4(2)
7(2)
4(1)
4(1)
5(10)
6(38)
2(6)
2(6)
13
11
15
13
15
23
3(9)

7(16)
3+
4(1)


m
dmin
13
11
12
15
17
3(4)
3(1)
3(3)
4(23)
5(154)
6(873)
23
21
31
32
35
37
4(24)
5(4)
4(11)
4(13)
5(86)
6(441)
45
16
41
51
63
73
4(11)
6(2)
4(6)
4(5)
5(46)
6(284)

In the results we extended previous rate 1/2 and rate 1/2 pun tured ode sear h
results to 128 states and found better odes based on our sear h riteria. For rate 3/4
odes we found a new 16 state ode with better ee tive free distan e than those previously
published. We generated ompletely new onstituent odes for rate 1/5 and 5/6.
In Table 3.5 we in luded the four state ode generator polynomial h=f7 5 5g whi h
is basi ally a repetition odes. In [2 it was noted that this type of onstituent ode does
not behave very well when embedded in a turbo ode. However, its larger ee tive free
distan e than the h=f7 5 7g ode should make it a mu h better ode. In Figures 3.11 and
3.12 we illustrate both simulation and bound results for both odes. Ea h was simulated
with an S-interleaver (S=13 for N=512 and S=16 for N=1024), and 6 iterations. As
we an see, the generator polynomial with larger d performs better in terms of both
simulation and bounds.
2
50
10
sim. g=[7 5 7]
sim. g=[7 5 5]
bound g=[7 5 7]
bound g=[7 5 5]
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
Figure 3.11: BER performan e omparison between repetition and non-repetition onstituent odes for four state rate 1/5 PCCC, N=512.
1
10
sim. g=[7 5 7]
sim. g=[7 5 5]
bound g=[7 5 7]
bound g=[7 5 5]
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
Figure 3.12: BER performan e omparison between repetition and non-repetition onstituent ode for four state rate 1/5 PCCC, N=1024.
51
3.7.1
Trun ated union bounds of PCCC
Figure 3.13 shows the trun ated union bound for rate 1/3 PCCCs with rate 1/2
onstituent en oders from 2 to 128 states. As we an see, the performan e of PCCCs
in reases as we in rease the omplexity of the onstituent odes. Although the trun ated
union bounds are only a urate for Eb =N >2dB, it is a good indi ation that PCCCs with
in reased omplexity and maximum likelihood de oding do perform better asymptoti ally
ompared to PCCCs with lower omplexity. Figures A.1 to A.7 in Appendix A give the
trun ated union bounds for other ode rates, whi h were found to have similar properties.
0
10
10
10
10
BER
10
10
10
12
10
s=2
s=4
s=8
s=16
s=32
s=64
s=128
14
10
16
10
18
10
20
10
3
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 3.13: Trun ated union bound for rate 1/3 PCCC with 1024 bit interleaver, with 2
state to 128 state rate 1/2 onstituent odes.
3.7.2
Maximum likelihood de oding and iterative de oding
From the average BER bound results given in this hapter we an see that in reasing
the omplexity of the onstituent de oder an improve the performan e. A note of aution,
the average BER bound is based on maximum likelihood de oding whi h may not hold
52
true when sub-optimum iterative de oding is used. In fa t, it is still an open problem to

nd omplex long odes with a realisable de oding algorithm that approa hes maximum
likelihood performan e.
3.8 Con lusion

In this hapter we looked at the reasons why the design parameters for the onstituent
odes of PCCCs are dierent from that of onventional onvolutional odes. By using the
average upper bound, we nd that we should maximise ee tive free distan e (d ) as well
as minimise the number of nearest neighbours (N ). For high rate onstituent odes where
multiple generator polynomials have identi al d and N , extra parameters su h as dmin ,
Nmin ,d , N were used to identify the best onstituent ode. We also nd that some high
rate repetition odes work better than non-repetition odes when embedded in the PCCC
stru ture.
The average bound of rate 1/9 to 2/3 PCCCs were found for onstituent en oders with
omplexity from 2 to 128 states. From the bounds, we an see that the asymptoti BER
performan e with maximum likelihood de oding improves when the en oder omplexity
in reases. However, it is still an open resear h problem to nd omplex long odes that
an be de oded by a realisable maximum likelihood algorithm.
2
53
Chapter 4
Interleaver Design
4.1 Introdu tion
Interleaving is a way of improving the performan e of an error orre tion s heme in
a bursty hannel. It has the job of spreading out long bursts of errors. The design of
interleavers in turbo odes is important sin e it has the job of redu ing the orrelation
between neighbouring bits. This redu es the bit error rate (BER) at ea h de oder iteration. In this hapter we will look at dierent properties and types of interleavers for the
appli ation of turbo odes.
Note that an interleaver is dened by its \type" and the \properties" it possesses.
An interleaver \type" des ribes the stru ture that is inherent to the way the interleaver
is generated. On the other hand, the \properties" are generi parameters whi h des ribe
useful or undesirable features of the interleaver. For ea h interleaver type it is possible
to have none, one or more properties whi h ould result in dierent BER performan e or
implementation omplexity.
Pun turing was rst applied to onvolutional odes [53 as a way of in reasing the
ode rate of existing rate 1/2 de oders. However, pun turing an degrade the performan e
of turbo odes due to uneven prote tion of the information bits aused by the random
interleaver. This problem an be redu ed by using a mod-k interleaver whi h ensures
uniform prote tion a ross every bit in the sequen e. For example, let I; J = f0; 1; 2; :::; N
1g. A normal interleaver maps I to J, i.e., : I ! J . A mod-k interleaver ensures that
54
ea h element at the i mod k, i 2 I position only maps to an element at the j mod k, j 2 J

position, i.e., : I mod k ! J mod k. For turbo odes where the resultant pun turing
period is greater than two we an relax the mod k restri tion. We will show that a mod-2
interleaver has around 0.2 dB improvement over a onventional interleaver at a BER of
10 for a four state rate 1/2 pun tured turbo ode.
Another interleaver type is the symmetri interleaver [54, 55. That is, a permutation is symmetri if ((i)) = i for all i 2 I . Thus, a symmetri interleaver has
identi al interleaving and deinterleaving properties, rather than the uneven properties of
non-symmetri interleavers. An advantage of this type of interleaver is that it an simplify interleaver implementation for pipelined turbo de oders sin e only one sequen e is
required to implement both the interleaver and deinterleaver. The amount of interleaver
memory an also be redu ed [55.
5
4.2 Interleaver Properties

In this se tion ertain properties of interleavers are examined. The properties, S
distan e, mod-k and symmetri , relate to turbo ode design and performan e.
4.2.1
S distan e Property
An interleaver with the spread or S distan e property [4 will, after interleaving, separate all neighbouring elements at least S interleaver index distan e apart, i.e., S =min(j(i)
(j )j; j (i) (j )j), for all i; j 2 I , ji j j = 1. The performan e of turbo odes improves as the S distan e in reases. However, it is more di ult to sear h for interleavers
with large S sin e the proportion of interleavers de reases with in reasing onstraint S .
Usually, a randomly sele ted interleaver with good performan e an be generated with
p
S < b N=2 , where N is the size of the interleaver [4. These interleavers are alled
S-random. It is usual to have some algorithm whi h an generate S-random interleavers
[4.
The input/output position plot of a 192 bit S-random interleaver with S = 1 and
S = 8 are given in Figures 4.1 and 4.2. As we an see from Figure 4.2, the elements
1
55
are more evenly spread ompared to a random interleaver with S = 1. For PCCCs,
where onvolutional en oders are used as onstituent odes, shorter error bursts o ur
more frequently than longer error bursts. Hen e, an S-random interleaver should be
able to breakup these shorter sequen es more ee tively, in reasing the free distan e or
de reasing the number of nearest neighbours. This results in better performan e.
200
180
160
Output position
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
120
Input position
140
160
180
200
Figure 4.1: Input/output position plot of a 192 bit pseudo-random interleaver.

Figures 4.3, 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6 show the bit error rate performan e of a four state PCCC
with 192, 512, 2048 and 4096 bit interleavers, respe tively. Ea h set of results are run
with 8 iterations and averaged over six interleavers with similar properties. As we an
see, larger values of S an improve the bit error rate performan e of turbo odes from 0.5
dB to as mu h as 1 dB for large interleavers.
Figures 4.7, 4.8 and 4.9 show simulation results for the a four state rate 1/3 SCCC
with interleaver sizes of 192, 1024 and 4096 bit respe tively. Ea h set of results are run
with 8 de oder iterations and averaged over six interleavers with similar properties. For
the ase of SCCCs it seems the the S value does not provide signi ant gain over random
56
200
180
160
Output position
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
120
Input position
140
160
180
200
Figure 4.2: Input/output position plot of a 192 bit S-random interleaver.

interleavers with an S value of one. In fa t, for the interleaver size of 4096 bits, the S =1
random interleaver performs 0.05 dB better than the other two interleavers with higher
S values. Hen e SCCCs appear to be not as sensitive to the hoi e of the S value as
ompared to PCCCs.
4.2.2
Mod-k Property
Pun turing an be used to in rease the ode rate of an existing ode while maintaining
the same en oder and de oder stru ture. The obje tive of a pun turing pattern [41 is to
show whi h of the output bits in ea h of the output streams are to be pun tured before
transmission. A zero represents a bit that is going to be deleted from the output stream,
while a one represents a bit that is going to be transmitted.
It was found that most pun tured turbo odes will ause uneven error prote tion on
the information bits after interleaving [5. Uneven error prote tion is aused by the fa t
that, after interleaving, ea h systemati bit of a turbo odeword may not have an equal
number of parity bits asso iated with it. With uneven pun turing, there may be long
57
10
S=1
S=6
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2
2.5
Eb/No (dB)
3.5
4.5
Figure 4.3: PCCC performan e with random interleaver and in reasing S onstraint, 192
bit interleaver.
1
10
S=1
S=5
S=10
S=13
2
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
bit interleaver.
58
10
S=1
S=10
S=20
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
bit interleaver.
interleaver size=4096
10
S=1
S=10
S=25
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
bit interleaver.
59
10
N=192(S=1)
N=192(S=6)
1
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 4.7: 4 state rate 1/3 SCCC simulation with 192 bit interleaver of dierent S values.
0
10
N=1024(S=1)
N=1024(S=10)
N=1024(S=16)
1
10
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/N0 (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Figure 4.8: 4 state rate 1/3 SCCC simulation with 1024 bit interleaver of dierent S
values.
60
10
N=4096(S=1)
N=4096(S=10)
N=4096(S=25)
1
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.2
1.4
Eb/N0 (dB)
Figure 4.9: 4 state rate 1/3 SCCC simulation with 4096 bit interleaver of dierent S
values.
strings of parity bits that are fully pun tured. This results in very weak prote tion of
these data bits, ausing a de rease in performan e for these data bits ompared to those
data bits that have long sequen es of parity.
To redu e the problem of uneven error prote tion the interleaver is designed to ensure
that after pun turing, the parity bits are uniformly spread a ross all the information bits.
For example, in Figure 4.10 we have a rate 1/2 pun tured turbo ode with pun turing
pattern 10 and 01 for the parity bits of the rst and se ond en oder. The pun turing
pattern 11 is used for the information bit stream output.
In Figure 4.10 p() are the resultant parity bits after pun turing with dierent interleaver patterns applied , namely u, (u) and mod (u). The shaded bits represent
parity bits from even index positions while blank bits represent parity bits from odd
index positions.
As we an see, random interleaving an ause uneven pun turing of the parity bits.
That is, after en oding some information bits will have two parity bits, while other in2
61
formation bits will have no parity bits; e.g., bit 1 has no parity bit while bit 2 has two
parity bits. However, the mod-2 interleaver, mod (u), ensures that ea h parity bit is
pun tured on e and only on e, thus ensuring uniform prote tion a ross all information
bits (ignoring edge ee ts at the start and end of the blo k).
2
1111
0000
0000
1111
0000
0000
1111
even:1111
0000 odd:
1111
0000
1111
p(u)
111
000
000
111
000
111
0
000
111
000
111
p( (u))
puncture:
0000
1111
0000
0000
1111
11111
2
3
0000
1111
1111
0000
0000
1111
000
111
0000
1111
000
111
0000
000
111
0000
1111
000
111
31111
0
2
0000
1111
000
111
0000
1111
000
111
after
puncturing
000
111
0000
000 1111
1111
000
111
0000
1111
2
30000
0
1
p( mod-2 (u)) 111
000
111
0000
1111
111
000
000
111
000
111
0
000
111
000
111
111
000
000
111
000
111
2
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
2
000
111
000
111
000 1111
111
0000
3
3
Figure 4.10: Amount of prote tion on information bits between random interleaver and
mod-2 interleaver.
Pure Mod-k Interleaver
The on ept of a mod-2 interleaver was rst applied to turbo odes in [5 as an \oddeven" interleaver, where improved performan e was a hieved for pun tured rate 1/2 turbo
odes. A mod-2 interleaver ensures that the even parity from the rst onstituent ode
and odd parity from the se ond onstituent ode are only interleaved in the even and odd
positions, respe tively. Figure 4.11 illustrates the input/output position plot of a mod-2
interleaver. In this gure, 2 represent even positions and represent odd positions.
Note that we an extend the mod-2 restri tion to mod-k where k is any positive
integer. It an be used in appli ations where k-1 parity bits are pun tured from ea h
onstituent ode. We all this a pure mod-k interleaver where the modulus rule applies
to all elements of the interleaver. Therefore a pure mod-k interleaver has i mod k = j
mod k, where the interleaver maps i ! j .
62
200
180
160
Output position
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
120
Input position
140
160
180
200
Figure 4.11: Input/output position plot of a 192 bit mod-2 S-random interleaver.
As an example, we present a nine element mod-3 interleaver, mod (u), in Figure
4.12. Ea h shade represents a dierent remainder of modulus 3. As we an see, ea h
element in the input sequen e u is interleaved a ording to their modulus 3 value. Therefore, after interleaving, the element addresses with modulus 3 values stay in the modulus
3 positions.
A mod-k interleaver an be onstru ted from k length N=k interleavers. The data is
written into a k by N=k matrix with ea h row permuted by ea h length N=k interleaver.
The data is then read by olumn. i.e., (i) = ki k + i mod k where j ; 0 j k 1
is a length N=k interleaver. We have that (i) mod k = i mod k proving that the
onstru tion generates a mod-k interleaver.
3
mod
Random Mod-k Interleaver
In the pure mod-k interleaver we restri t all elements of the input sequen e by the
mod-k rule. The only goal of the mod-k interleaver is to ensure the unpun tured parity bit
stays with the information bit. Therefore we an relax the restri tion of mod-k interleavers
63
u mod 3 =
u
mod-3
111
000
1
2
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
7
2
000
111
000
111
1111
0000
0000
1111
0000
1111
0
0000
1111
0000
1111
0000
1111
0000
1111
0000
1111
0000
0000
1111
6
( u )1111
0000
1111
0000
1111
0000
1111
1111
0000
1
2
0000
1111
0000
1111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
000
111
000
111
3
4
5
6 111
7 8
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
000
111
000
0 111
1
8 111
3 111
4 5
000
111
000
111
000
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
111
000
000 111
111
000
111
111
000
000
111
000
111
0
000
111
000
111
000
111
Figure 4.12: Example of a nine element pure mod-3 interleaver.

to only the desired element su h that if i mod k=0, then j mod k=0 and if i mod k 2
f1, ,k-1g, then j mod k 2 f1, ,k-1g. This will introdu e more randomness into the
interleaver while retaining the modulus k property of the pun tured ode. Hen e for a
modied modulus 3 interleaver, if i mod k=0, then j mod k=0 and if i mod k 2 f1,2g,
then j mod k 2 f1,2g.
Figures 4.13, 4.14 and 4.15 show the simulation performan e of an S-random and an
S-random-mod-2 interleaver for a four state rate 1/2 pun tured turbo ode with a 256,
1024 and 4096 bit interleaver and eight iterations. The simulation results are averaged
over six interleavers. As we an see, for N=1024 and 4096, mod-2 interleavers an perform
about 0.2 dB better than a onventional random interleaver at a BER of 10 . For N=256,
mod-2 interleavers don't appear to have any advantage.
We an apply higher amounts of pun turing to in rease the ode rate. Therefore, we
require a mod-k interleaver to a ommodate dierent levels of pun turing. For example,
we an pun ture a rate 1/2 onstituent ode to a rate 3/4 ode. This in turn generates a
rate 3/5 turbo ode. The pun turing pattern for the rst and se ond onstituent ode is (0
1 0) and (1 0 0) respe tively. The results for three dierent types of 2049 bit interleavers
are presented in Figure 4.16. The simulation results are averaged over six interleavers. As
we an see, a pure mod-3 or random mod-3 interleaver improves the performan e sin e
we ensure that all the parity bits are evenly distributed a ross all information bits. From
omputer simulations we found that a random mod-3 interleaver gives similar results
5
64
to a pure mod-3 interleaver. The ow diagram for the generation of mod-k S-random
interleavers is given in Appendix B.
4.2.3
Symmetri Property
A disadvantage of most of the interleavers types mentioned previously is that they

require both an interleave and a deinterleave sequen e. Sin e an interleave and a deinterleave sequen e are normally dierent, separate hardware or lookup tables are usually
required for ea h sequen e. We an solve this problem by using a symmetri interleaver
[55, where the interleave and deinterleave sequen es are identi al. In other words, a single
interleaver sequen e an perform both interleaving and deinterleaving.
We an illustrate this using a simple nine element symmetri interleaver as presented in Figure 4.17. As we an see, a symmetri interleaver has identi al interleave
and deinterleave sequen es (e.g., element 1 goes to 3 and 3 goes to 1 during interleave
and deinterleave). A onventional pseudo-random interleaver requires two sequen es that
are the inverse of ea h other (e.g., element 1 goes to 6 and 6 goes to 3 at interleave,
during deinterleave 6 goes ba k to 1 and 3 goes ba k to 6). Note that for the symmetri
interleaver i ! i is a valid interleave pattern for some i.
4.3 Interleaver Types

Many dierent authors [5, 6, 7, 54, 56, 57 have looked at the performan e of turbo
odes with dierent interleaver types sin e its rst introdu tion in 1993. The interleaver is
a riti al omponent of a turbo ode sin e it redu es orrelation between ea h onstituent
de oder so that improvement an be made with ea h iteration. It also performs the
fun tion of spe tral thinning whi h allows the medium input weight spe tral lines to
dominate the BER performan e at low SNR. This is the reason why turbo odes an have
outstanding performan e at low SNR. However, at high SNR performan e is redu ed due
to the small minimum distan e of the onstituent odes used. In this se tion we will
brie y look at the stru ture of ea h proposed interleaver type.
65
10
S=8 Srandom
S=8 Smod2
1
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
Figure 4.13: 4 state rate 1/2 turbo ode with dierent 256 bit mod-2 interleavers, eight
iterations.
0
10
S=16 Srandom
S=16 Smod2
1
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
iterations.
66
10
S=26 Srandom
S=26 Smod2
1
10
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
iterations.
1
10
S=20 Srandom
S=20 Random Smod3
S=20 Pure Smod3
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
Eb/No (dB)
iterations.
67
Interleave
Deinterleave
Symmetric Interleaver
1
Interleave
Deinterleave
Random Interleaver
Figure 4.17: Interleave and deinterleave pattern for symmetri and random interleaver.
4.3.1
Blo k Interleaver
The blo k interleaver is one of the frequently used interleaver types [4, 41, 58, 59.
It is implemented in many wireless ommuni ation systems (GSM, IS-95) to break up
burst errors that will be en ountered by the de oder. Its operation involves writing the
information bits into the rows of an m n matrix and reading the bits in the olumn
dire tion of the same matrix (m and n are the number of rows and olumns, respe tively).
That is (i) = m(i mod n) + i div n, i 2 I; mn = N; i div n = bi=n . Deinterleaving
is performed simply by writing the interleaved bits in the olumn dire tion and reading
them in the row dire tion. That is (j ) = n(i mod m) + j div m; j 2 J . This type
of interleaver has been widely used for most on atenated ode systems where the outer
ode (usually a Reed-Solomon ode) are blo k interleaved before being en oded by the
inner ode to break up the long bursts of errors generated by the inner de oder.
Figure 4.18 plots the input and output positions of a 192 bit (16 12) blo k interleaver. We all this an input/output position plot; it gives a good visual pi ture of an
1
68
interleaver pattern.
4.3.2
Cir ular Interleaver
The output of the ir ular interleaver is based on the following ongruen e modulo
n relation
(j ) = (aj ) mod N:
(j ) is the output position of an interleaved element, j is the input position of the element,
p
and a < b 2N is the step size whi h is hosen to be relatively prime to the interleaver
size N . The step size determines the separation between two neighbouring elements after
interleaving. A detailed dis ussion of this interleaver stru ture is given in [4. Figure 4.19
shows the input/output position plot of a 192 bit ir ular shift interleaver with a = 17.
4.3.3
Blo k heli al Interleaver
The blo k heli al interleaver [60 writes ea h input data element in the row dire tion
of an m n matrix, where m has to be hosen relatively prime to n. Interleaving starts
from the upper left hand orner element, in rementing the index of ea h dimension by
one with modulo m and n in the row and olumn dire tion, respe tively, i.e.,
ri+1 = ri + 1 mod m
i+1 = i + 1 mod n
i = 0; 1; ; N
where ri and i are the row and olumn indi es for the ith bit. Their initial values are
r0 = 0
0 = 0:
This is similar to the \simile" interleaver proposed in [61. Figure 4.20(a) illustrates the
interleaving pro edure of the blo k heli al interleaver. Another way of interleaving is to
69
200
180
160
Output position
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
120
Input position
140
160
180
200
Figure 4.18: Input/output position plot of a 192 bit blo k interleaver.

200
180
160
Output position
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
120
Input position
140
160
180
200
Figure 4.19: Input/output position plot of a 192 bit ir ular shift interleaver, a = 17.
70
start from the lower left hand orner, Figure 4.20(b), i.e.,
ri+1 = ri
1 mod m
i+1 = i + 1 mod n
with initial values

r0 = N
0 = 0:
First sequence
Second sequence
Third sequence
10
11
10
11
(a)
(b)
Figure 4.20: A 3 4 blo k heli al interleaver with interleaving from (a) the upper left
hand orner and (b) the lower left hand orner.
Figure 4.21 shows the input/output position plot of a 208 bit (16 13) blo k heli al
interleaver.
4.3.4
Pseudo-random Interleaver
Pseudo-random interleavers are interleavers that are generated randomly [4. Ea h

size N pseudo-random interleaver is randomly sele ted from N ! possible interleaver patterns. Figure 4.1 shows the input/output position plot of a 192 bit pseudo-random interleaver. As we an see from the plot, some elements are lo ated lose to ea h other.
This will redu e its ee tiveness of breaking up some of the error sequen es. We may
apply some riteria while onstru ting the interleaver, so that the interleaver has some
property that is desired, e.g., in reasing the S distan e so that error sequen es an be
more ee tively broken up.
71
200
180
160
Output position
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Input position
140
160
180
200
Figure 4.21: Input/output position plot of a 208 bit blo k heli al interleaver.
4.3.5
Symmetri Interleavers
As dis ussed in Se tion 4.2, interleavers with symmetri properties only require a
single interleaver pattern to perform both interleaving and deinterleaving. Below is a list
of interleavers with symmetri properties that an be used for PCCCs and SCCCs with
dierent blo k sizes.
Blo k Symmetri
A blo k symmetri interleaver is a blo k interleaver with the symmetri property.

A property of the blo k interleaver is that the deinterleaving operation is simply blo k
interleaving with the dimension of the blo k interleaver swapped. Therefore letting n = m
72
we have
(i) = n(i mod n) + i div n
( (i)) = n(fn(i mod n) + i div ng mod n) + fn(i mod n) + i div ng div n
= n(i div n) + i mod n

= i
proving that an n n blo k interleaver is symmetri (proof uses the fa t that i div n
n 1). Another approa h is to re all that (i) = m(i mod n) + i div n and (j ) =
n(i mod m) + j div m. Therefore, m = n results in identi al interleave and deinterleave
sequen es, whi h satises the riteria for the symmetri property.
1
Blo k Heli al Symmetri
A blo k heli al interleaver with dimension m(m 1) is a symmetri interleaver if

interleaved from the upper left hand orner or (n 1)n if interleaved form the lower left
hand orner.
We an illustrate this by using a simple example of a 4 3 heli al interleaver whi h
interleaves from the upper left hand orner. As we interleave ea h element we assign a
number in its pla e for the nal position in the interleaver. From Figure 4.22 we an see
that after we assign the index to the array some of the elements are swapped as a result of
the interleaving. This results in a symmetri interleaver stru ture. If we interleave from
the lower left hand orner all that is required is to swap the matrix dimension to a hieve
similar results.
Table 4.1 shows the mapping index of the heli al interleaver in Figure 4.22. im ; in
are the m and n dimension index of the ith element, respe tively. Note that we an also
express the index of im and in as i div n and i mod n, respe tively. () is the mapping
fun tion of the heli al interleaver dened as
(im ; in ) = (i div n; i mod n) 7! (i mod m; i mod n):
73
10
10
11
11
Figure 4.22: Position plot of a 4 3 blo k heli al interleaver.
im ; in f (im ; in )
0,0
0,1
0,2
1,0
1,1
1,2
2,0
2,1
2,2
3,0
3,1
3,2
0,0
1,1
2,2
3,0
0,1
1,2
2,0
3,1
0,2
1,0
2,1
3,2
f (i)
0 0
1 4
2 8
3 9
4 1
5 5
6 6
7 10
8 2
9 3
10 7
11 11
Table 4.1: Input/output index of the heli al interleaver in Figure 4.22.
74
Hen e, for the ith element of the input sequen e,

(i) = (n(i div n) + i mod n) 7! n(i mod m) + i mod n:
Now, if we interleave i twi e, i.e.,

( (i)) = n((n(i mod m) + i mod n) mod m) + (n(i mod m) + i mod n) mod n:
The se ond part of the expression, (n(i mod m) + i mod n) mod n is equivalent to i mod
n sin e it is just a multiple of n plus i mod n. For the rst part, we onje ture that
(n(i mod m) + i mod n) mod m is equal to (i div n) when m = (n + 1). We have
g (i) = [n(i mod (n + 1)) + i mod n mod (n + 1)
= [(n + 1)(i mod (n + 1)) + i mod n i mod (n + 1) mod (n + 1)

= [i mod n i mod (n + 1) mod (n + 1):
For every n, i mod n i mod (n + 1) de reases by n. This is equivalent to in rementing
by 1 mod (n + 1). That is, g(i) in rements by one every n whi h is equal to i div n. Thus
( (i)) = n(i div n) + i mod n = i
and we have a symmetri interleaver.

If m 6= n + 1 we an see that the proof will not hold sin e we will not have the
required in rement by one every n.
Figure 4.23 shows the input/output position plot of a 182 bit interleaver generated
by a 14 13 matrix with interleaving from the lower left hand orner.
Cir ular Symmetri
It is also possible to onstru t symmetri interleavers using the ir ular interleaver

stru ture.
Theorem: A ir ular interleaver that satises the symmetri riteria must satisfy the
following rule for step size a, blo k size N , and some integer 0 m N 1
a2 = mN + 1:
75
(4.2)
180
160
140
Output position
120
100
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
Input position
120
140
160
180
Figure 4.23: Input/output position plot of a blo k heli al symmetri interleaver.

Proof:
To prove that this will produ e a symmetri interleaver, we use the interleaver
generating equation of the ir ular interleaver
f (f (i)) = a(ia mod N ) mod N = i
a(ia mod N ) = jN + i
jN + i
ia mod N =
a
jN + i
ia = kN +
a
2
) (ak + j )N + i = ia
if l = ak + j
then lN + i = ia
lN
+ 1 = a2
i
now let l = im ) mN + 1 = a2 :
Hen e, generating a ir ular interleaver with a symmetri property is just a matter of

76
nding the pair of a and N that satises the property in (4.2). For a given blo k size of
p
N bits, we need to nd the multiple m, su h that mN + 1 results in an integer value.
Sin e we are working in mod N ,m = 0; 1; 2; ; N 1. In other words, we want to nd
all the m whi h results in an integer value of a that satises
mN + 1 = a (integer):
(4.3)
For example, to nd the step sizes of a 192 bit symmetri interleaver will require us to
p
nd (0; 1; 2; ; 190; 191) 192 + 1 su h that the result is an integer value
a = 1 , 31 , 65 , 95 , 97 , 127 , 161 , 191.
Figure 4.24 shows the input/output position plot a 192 bit symmetri ir ular interleaver
with a = 31. The .m Matlab le used to nd all values of a given a blo k size N is given
in Appendix C.
180
160
140
Output position
120
100
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
Input position
120
140
160
180
Figure 4.24: Input/ouput position plot of a 192 bit ir ular symmetri interleaver with
a = 31.
Figures 4.25, 4.26 and 4.27 show the BER performan e of the four state rate 1/3
PCCC with ir ular interleavers of dierent a values.
77
10
N=255 a=16 circular symmetric

2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2.5
Eb/No (dB)
3.5
4.5
Figure 4.25: BER performan e of 255 bit ir ular interleaver with dierent values of a.
1
10

2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
78
10

2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
Pseudo-Random Symmetri
The generation of a pseudo-random symmetri interleaver is similar to that of a

pseudo-random interleaver, ex ept with the onstraint that if I ! J then J ! I . To
generate a good interleaver we an also add in the S-distan e onstraint to make it work
better for turbo odes. Figure 4.28 shows the input/output position plot of a 192 bit
S-symmetri interleaver with S=9.
The ow diagram for generating a symmetri interleaver with distan e S and mod-k
properties is presented in Appendix B.
Sin e we are swapping the positions of two elements in a sequen e, we may loose
some randomness that is required for turbo odes to de orrelate information between the
rst and se ond de oder. This may degrade the performan e of turbo odes. We an hope
to redu e this degradation by putting a distan e onstraint during the generation of the
interleaver. In fa t, we may argue that a symmetri interleaver an perform better than
a onventional interleaver due to the fa t that both the interleaver and deinterleaver have
79
180
160
140
Output position
120
100
80
60
40
20
20
40
60
80
100
Input position
120
140
160
180
Figure 4.28: Input/output position plot of a 192 bit S-symmetri interleaver.

the same properties. That is, a symmetri interleaver that is good at interleaving will
also be good at deinterleaving. This ee t was rst pointed out in [54 where symmetri
interleavers were shown to have identi al orrelation oe ients for the interleave and
deinterleave sequen es. While it is possible to generate a random interleaver whi h has
good interleave and deinterleave properties, it is easier to generate a good symmetri
interleaver sin e we only need to test the properties of only one sequen e.
Figure 4.29 presents the results for the four state rate 1/3 turbo ode with interleaver size 1024 and ve iterations. As we an see from the results, an interleaver design
p
with the S onstraint (where S= N=4=16) performs better than an ordinary random
interleaver. The performan e of the interleaver was improved when we imposed the symmetri onstraint. This indi ates that the property of having identi al interleaving and
deinterleaving an improve performan e.
Figures 4.30, 4.31 and 4.32 show further simulation results for three dierent interleaver sizes with eight de oder iterations. Ea h set of simulation results are averaged over
80
six dierent interleavers with the same properties. Although there are no obvious improvements in performan e between S-random and S-symmetri interleavers; the absen e
in degradation between the two types of interleavers still make S-symmeti interleavers
an attra tive alternative.
Finally, Figures 4.33, 4.34, 4.35 and 4.36 show a omparison between dierent types
of symmetri interleavers for a rate 1/3 four state PCCC and dierent interleaver sizes.
All results were averaged over six dierent interleavers with the same properties.
As we an see from the gures, the S-symmetri interleaver outperforms all the other
symmetri interleaver types due to its improved distan e property.
4.4 Symmetri Mod-k interleaver

In the previous se tion we dis ussed three properties that we an introdu e to an
interleaver stru ture where ea h of them by itself an oer performan e improvements
when applied to turbo odes. One intuitive step would be to introdu e all these properties
into an interleaver and see if they oer any additional improvement.
Figure 4.37 presents simulation results for a 1024 bit mod-2 S-symmetri interleaver
with S=15 and other types of 1024 bit interleavers for a four state pun tured rate 1/2
turbo ode. Six de oder iterations were used before a hard de ision was made.
From Figure 4.37 we an see that if we ombine the symmetri and mod-2 properties
we an make use of the improvement from both properties.
Figures 4.38, 4.39 and 4.40 show the BER performan e of dierent mod-3 interleavers
with interleaver size 256, 1024 and 4096 bits. A four state rate 3/5 PCCC with pun turing
pattern (0 0 1) and (1 0 0) for the rst and se ond onstituent ode is simulated for 8
iterations. For interleaver size of 256 bits, all three dierent types of interleaver give
very similar performan e. For interleaver size of 1024 bits the random S-mod-3 interlaver
perform better than the other two interleaver types. For interleaver size of 4096 bits, all
three S-mod-3 interleaver types perform better than the S-random interleaver. While the
Pure S-mod-3 interleaver performs slightly better than the other two S-mod-3 interleaver
81
10
Random
Srandom
Ssymmetric
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Figure 4.29: Interleaver performan e omparison for four state rate 1/3 turbo ode,
N=1024, six iterations.
1
10
Random interleaver
S=10 Srandom interleaver
S=10 Srandom symmetric interleaver
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
Figure 4.30: 4 state rate 1/3 turbo ode with dierent 400 bit interleavers and eight
iterations.
82
10
Random interleaver
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Eb/No (dB)
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
iterations.
1
10
Random interleaver
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
iterations.
83
10
N=256(16x16) block symmetric

N=272(17x16) helical symmetric
N=255(a=16) circular symmetric
N=256(S=8) Ssymmetric
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
3.5
Figure 4.33: Comparison between dierent types of symmetri interleaver with six iterations, N =256.
2
10

BER
10
10
10
1.5
2.5
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 4.34: Comparison between dierent types of symmetri interleaver with eight
iterations, N =512.
84
10

10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
iterations, N =1024.
1
10

2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
iterations, N =4096.
85
10
Block
Helical
Random
Srandom
Smod2
Ssym.
Ssym. mod2
10
P(e)
10
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Figure 4.37: 4 state rate 1/2 turbo ode with dierent 1024 bit interleaver designs and
six iterations.
types.
Figures 4.41, 4.42 and 4.43 show the BER performan e of dierent mod-4 interleavers
with interleaver size 400, 2048 and 4086 bits. A four state rate 4/6 PCCC with pun turing
pattern (0 0 0 1) and (1 0 0 0) for the rst and se ond onstituent ode is simulated for 8
iterations. For interleaver size of 400 bits all interleaver types have similar performan e.
For interleaver size of 2048 bits the pure S-mod-4 interleaver performs better than the
other three interleaver types. The S-mod-4 interleavers with symmetri properties performs slightly better than those without symmetri properties. For interleaver size of 4086
bits, all interleaver types give very similar performan e, with the pure S-mod-4 interleaver
performing better at Eb=N below 2.5 dB.
Interleavers with mod-k properties do improve performan e with pun turing, as an
be seem from mod-2 interleavers. However, when high amounts of pun turing are applied
(above mod-3 pun turing) the performan e gain from using mod-k interleavers is very
small. Simulation results also show that in most ases the dieren e in performan e
0
86
between pure mod-k interleavers and random mod-k interleavers are not very signi ant.
Therefore, the added randomess does not seem to result in a better interleaver.
1
10

S=8 Pure Smod3 interleaver
S=8 Random Smod3 interleaver
S=8 Random Smod3 Symmetric interleaver
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
4
Eb/No (dB)
iterations.
4.5 Interleaver Size and Performan e

In [62 it was found that the amount of performan e improvment will diminish as
the interleaver size in reases. There are only very small improvement in performan e as
the interleaver size goes above 8,000 bits. Figure 4.44 shows the BER performan e for
four dierent interleaver sizes: 192, 1024, 4096 and 8192. As an be seen from the results,
there is around 1 dB gain at 10 by in reasing the interleaver size from 192 bits to 1024
bits. The gain redu es to 0.5 dB as the interleaver size in reases from 1024 bits to 4096
bits. The gain a hieved from 4096 bits to 8192 bits is only a fra tion of a dB. Hen e
we get diminishing returns as the interleaver size in reases. However, as mentioned in
Chapter 3, in reasing the interleaver size does lower the are due to in reased interleaver
gain.
5
87
10

10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
Eb/No (dB)
iterations.
1
10

10
10
10
10
10
10
Eb/No (dB)
iterations.
88
10

S=10 Random Smod4 symmetric
S=10 pure Smod4 interleaver
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
3.5
iterations.
0
10

S=20 Random Smod4 symmetric
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
iterations.
89
10

S=25 Random Smod4 symmetric interleaver
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
iterations.
1
10
N=192 (S=6)
N=1024 (S=16)
N=4096 (S=25)
N=8192 (S=64)
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
3.5
Figure 4.44: 4 state rate 1/3 turbo ode with dierent interleaver sizes and eight iterations.
90
4.6 Symmetri Interleavers and SCCCs

In the previous se tion we investigated symmetri interleavers whi h an be used for
parallel on atenated turbo odes. However, how well will the interleavers perform if they
are used for SCCCs? Figures 4.45, 4.46, 4.47, 4.48 and 4.49 present results for a rate 1/3
SCCC (rate 1/2 RSC outer ode and rate 2/3 RSC inner ode) with dierent types of
192 bit, 256 bit, 512 bit, 1024 bit and 4096 bit interleavers with 6 iterations. Ea h n
en oded bits from the outer en oder were grouped together before interleaving to ensure
S distan e separation after interleaving.
As we an see from the simulation results, a onventional S-random interleaver
a hieves the best results. The ir ular shift and the S-symmetri interleavers a hieve
omparable results. This result was not expe ted and a satisfa tory explanation ould
not be found. However, it seems that SCCCs are more sensitive to interleaver stru ture
ompared to PCCCs. An explanation for this ould be a subje t of further studies.
1
10
N=192 Rand.
N=196 Block
N=192 Circ.
S=9 Srand.
S=9 SSym.
10
BER
10
10
10
10
1.5
2.5
3.5
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 4.45: 4 state rate 1/3 SCCC simulation with dierent types of 192 bit interleaver.
91
10

N=256(S=8) Srandom
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2
2.5
Eb/No (dB)
3.5
4.5
1
10
N=512 Rand.
N=529 Block
N=512 Circ.
S=13 Srand.
S=13 SSym.
10
BER
10
10
10
10
1.5
2.5
3.5
Eb/No (dB)
92
10

N=1024(S=16) Srandom
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2
Eb/No (dB)
2.5
3.5
0
10

N=4096(S=25) Srandom
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
Eb/No (dB)
93
4.7 Con lusion

In this hapter we examined several dierent interleaver types and properties. We
simulated the performan e of these interleavers with PCCCs and found that interleavers
with the symmetri property perform better than interleavers without the symmetri
property. This may be due to the fa t that a symmetri interleaver has identi al interleave
and deinterleave patterns whi h an make it both a good interleaver and deinterleaver.
Further improvements an be a hieved if the S distan e onstraints are introdu ed to the
interleaver. A symmetri interleaver also has the advantage of redu ing the omplexity
of turbo odes be ause only a single sequen e is needed to perform both interleaving and
deinterleaving.
When applied to pun tured turbo odes a mod-k interleaver allows uniform prote tion
a ross ea h bit. This is useful where we want to ensure that ea h information bit is
prote ted by at least one parity bit. Simulation results show that this type of interleaver
an perform better than a pseudo-random interleaver for pun tured turbo odes.
We ombined the symmetri , mod-k and S distan e properties together during the
generation of the interleaver. From simulations, we found that the ombined interleaver
performs better than either a symmetri or mod-k interleaver.
We also nd that when we apply the S-symmetri interleaver to SCCCs we annot a hieve a performan e improvement when ompared to an S-random interleaver. In
general, an S-random interleaver an a hieve better performan e than other types of interleavers for SCCCs. It is not fully understood why S-symmetri interleavers do not
perform as well as an S-random interleaver when applied to SCCCs. This ould be a
subje t of further investigation.
Re ently, a new interleaver stru ture based on the \golden" ratio was proposed [6.
It was found that this type of interleaver an dramati ally lower the are of turbo odes
at high Eb =N . Further investigation will be required to nd out how well symmetri
interleavers ompare to this type of interleaver.
0
94
Chapter 5
Varian e estimation for PCCCs and
SCCCs
5.1 Introdu tion
In analysing wireless hannels we usually assume that we know exa tly the varian e
of the hannel. However, in real appli ations this is usually not the ase. The varian e
needs to be derived from the data that was re eived and hen e is only an approximation.
There remains a question on how will a non-a urate varian e ae t the performan e of
an iterative de oder, for both PCCCs and SCCCs.
In [63, 64 a study of varian e variation on the performan e of PCCCs was performed.
It was found that the penalty due to the performan e for PCCCs was small if the varian e
estimated was below the a tual value of the varian e, i.e. estimate true . However, the
ee t on the performan e of SCCCs has not been previously studied. In this hapter we
will rst look at the ee t of dierent varian e osets on the performan e of PCCCs and
SCCCs and see if we an apply the varian e estimation methods previously studied for
PCCCs.
2
5.2 Varian e sensitivity of PCCCs and SCCCs

In this se tion we will look at the varian e sensitivity of PCCCs and SCCCs and its
ee t on their performan e.
95
5.2.1
Varian e sensitivity of onstituent odes
Before we go any further, we will look at the ee t of varian e mismat h on the

performan e of the onstituent odes sin e they are an integral part of both SCCCs and
PCCCs. To simplify the pro ess we only look at the performan e of CCs for a four state
rate 1/2 and 2/3 onstituent ode with dierent values of Eb=N oset. We use Eb =N
be ause we an dire tly relate the results ba k to simulated BER results as well as the
a tual varian e sin e Eb=N is inversely proportional to the varian e of the hannel.
Figures 5.1 and 5.2 shows the BER performan e of a rate 1/2 and 2/3 log-MAP
de oder with a de oder Eb=N oset range from -8dB to 8dB. These two rates were
hosen be ause they are the most ommonly used CC in PCCCs and SCCCs.
Note that the Eb=N of the hannel an be onverted to (for an overall ode rate
of R) for a BPSK AWGN hannel by using the following relationship
0
2 = (2R
Eb
No
) :
1
Sin e Eb =N is inversely proportional to the varian e , if the oset is negative, then

the varian e used by the de oder is greater than that of the a tual noise varian e, i.e.,
M AP > noise . Whereas if the the oset is positive, then the varian e of the de oder is
less than that of the a tual noise varian e, i.e. MAP < noise.
As we an see from the gures, both rates perform quite well if the estimated varian e
is less than the a tual noise varian e of the hannel, i.e., if the de oder underestimates the
a tual ondition of the hannel. On the other hand, performan e does not degrade until
the Eb =N oset is at least 2dB under the a tual Eb =N . Hen e, the log-MAP algorithm is
quite robust to noise varian e variation. This is going to ae t the performan e of PCCCs
and SCCCs in terms of varian e mismat h, as we will see later.
2
5.2.2
Varian e mismat h of PCCCs
It was found in [63 and [64 that the varian e mismat h fa tor does not signi antly
ae t the performan e of PCCCs if the estimated varian e is less than the true noise
varian e. This is similar to that of the log-MAP de oder in the last se tion sin e it is an
96
10
0 db
1 db
2 db
3 db
4 db
BER
10
10
10
0
Eb/No offset
Figure 5.1: BER performan e of four state rate 1/2 log-MAP de oder versus de oder
Eb =N oset, N=1024.
0
10
0 db
1 db
2 db
3 db
4 db
BER
10
10
10
0
Eb/No offset
Figure 5.2: BER performan e of four state rate 2/3 log-MAP de oder versus de oder
Eb =N oset, N=1024.
0
97
integral part of the PCCC de oder. We an explain this by looking at the stru ture of
a PCCC de oder. Varian e estimation is used at both onstituent de oders, where the
hannel information is being fed into the de oder. This an help distribute the errors
between the two de oders. Hen e, the performan e of a PCCC de oder with an S=16
S-random interleaver is similar to a MAP de oder with varian e mismat h, as we an see
in Figure 5.3.
0
10
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
Eb/No=0 dB
Eb/No=0.5 dB
Eb/No=1 dB
Eb/No=1.5 dB
4
0
Eb/No offset (dB)
Figure 5.3: BER performan e of four state rate 1/3 PCCC versus de oder Eb =N oset,
0
5.2.3
Varian e mismat h of SCCC
Figures 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 and 5.7 show the performan e of a four state rate 1/3 SCCC
versus varian e mismat h for six iterations with log-MAP onstituent de oder and Srandom interleaver sizes of 256 (S=8), 1024(S=16), 2048(S=20) and 4096(S=26) bits,
respe tively. As we an see from the results, the same annot be said about SCCCs,
where both under estimates and over estimates do not perform very well. This might be
98
due to the fa t that the pro ess of varian e estimation is only used at the inner de oding
stage. Hen e, varian e mismat h errors only appear at the rst de oding stage, ompared
to PCCCs where the errors are more evenly spread a ross both de oders. Also note that
the de oder a hieves better performan e if the Eb =N is somewhere between -0.5 to -1 dB
away from the true Eb =N . We annot nd a satisfa tory explanation for this ee t whi h
ould be a fo us for future investigation.
0
10
Eb/No=0 dB
Eb/No=1 dB
Eb/No=2 dB
Eb/No=2.5 dB
BER
10
10
10
10
0
Eb/No offset (dB)
Figure 5.4: BER performan e of four state rate 1/3 SCCC versus de oder Eb =N oset,
N=256, eight iterations.
0
99
10
BER
10
10
10
Eb/No=0 dB
Eb/No=0.5 dB
Eb/No=1 dB
Eb/No=1.5 dB
10
0
Eb/No offset (dB)
0
10
10
BER
10
10
0 dB
0.5 dB
1 dB
1.2 dB
1.4 dB
10
10
0
Eb/No offset (dB)
0
100
10
10
BER
10
10
10
Eb/No=0 dB
Eb/No=0.5 dB
Eb/No=1 dB
10
0
Eb/No offset (dB)
0
5.3 Varian e estimation methods.

Two dierent varian e estimation approa hes were proposed in [64, 9 and [63. Both
approa hes, although dierent, are suitable for online estimation of the hannel varian e.
5.3.1
Summer varian e estimator
[64, 9 proposed a way of estimating the varian e dire tly from the magnitude of the
re eived symbol rn by nding the ratio between E (rn) and E (jrnj) , whi h is a fun tion
of Es=N . We have
2
E (rn2 ) = Es + 2
and
E (jrnj) =
e
2
(Es =2 2 )
+ Es erf
101
q
Es
2 2
i
The ratio be omes,

E (rn2 )
=
[E (jrnj)2
1 + E2
q
h
q
i
+ E2 erf E2
s
q
(Es =2 2 )
e

Es
= f 2 :
2
As we an see, it is not easy to nd the varian e from the ratio by using this equation.
A pra ti al approa h is to nd the ratio and its related hannel varian e for the
operational range of the de oder and express it as a lookup table. By using this lookup
table we an nd the varian e of the hannel by obtaining the ratio from the re eived
data. Another way, as suggested in [64, is to nd an nth order polynomial that an
approximate the ratio E (rn)/E (jrnj) for a xed hannel varian e range that is related to
the de oder's Eb =N operating range.
2
1.55
true
estimated
f(x)
1.5
1.45
1.4
1.35
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.2
1.4
1.6
Channel Variance
1.8
2.2
2.4
Figure 5.8: f (x) versus Channel Varian e.

Figure 5.8 shows the plot of f (x) versus hannel varian e for a rate 1/3 ode. The
102
expression of the polynomial is

f (x) = 515:8817x3
2175:6197x + 3060:7811x 1435:7934

2
where the oe ients of the third order polynomial were obtained from the polyt fun tion in Matlab [65. First the fun tion f (x) is analysed for the hannel varian e range
that is equivalent to an Eb =N range from -2dB to 5 dB. The Matlab fun tion polyt is
then used to nd the polynomial that ts the fun tion f (x) in the least squares sense.
The oe ients of the polynomial generated by Matlab is then used in the estimator to
estimate the hannel varian e given the re eived E (rn)/E (jrnj) ratio. The Matlab le
used to generate the oe ients is given in Appendix D.
An advantage of this method is that it an provide an estimate of the varian e before
the de oding of ea h blo k. This allows the de oder to operate at a varian e that is quite
lose to the true varian e. The estimated varian e at ea h blo k is averaged with the last
estimate using
~j = ^j + (1 )~j
(5.1)
0
where ^j is the estimated varian e of the urrent blo k j , ~j is the varian e of the last
blo k , and an be varied to adjust the averaging response, whi h is 0.99 for this ase.
2
5.3.2
Reed varian e estimator
In [63 an estimator that uses the turbo de oder hard de ision output to estimate
the noise varian e was proposed. It makes use of the fa t that, given enough Eb =N ,
the hard-de ision output of the turbo de oder will be very lose to the symbol a tually
transmitted. Hen e, we an make use of this fa t to a urately estimate the varian e of
the hannel by using the equation
0
N
X1
^j2+1 =
(rk;j d^k;j )
k=0
(5.2)
where rk;j is the re eived symbol at time k in blo k j , d^k;j is the hard de ision output of
the turbo de oder after an integer number of iterations and ak is the fading amplitude of
103
a fully interleaved, frequen y non-sele tive, slowly fading Rayleigh hannel. Note that the
estimated varian e is for the next blo k of the turbo de oder. The varian e is averaged
at ea h de oded blo k using
~j2+1 = ^j2+1 + (1 )~j2 :
(5.3)
A disadvantage of this estimator is that it has a one blo k delay. That is, the estimator
has to wait for the hard de ision of the rst blo k before the estimated varian e an be
used for the next blo k. However, this an be over ome by using a simple estimator to
nd a lose estimate of varian e before the rst iteration starts.
5.3.3
New Reed varian e estimator
An assumption of the Reed estimator is that it assumes the de oder knows exa tly
the magnitude of the transmitted amplitude. This is not true in a real ommuni ation
systems where the amplitude of the signal is dependent on the signal to noise ratio due to
the auto gain ontrol of the re eiver amplier. At high SNR the amplitude of the signal
is lose to the gain level of the auto gain ontroller. At low SNR, the ombination of
noise and signal results in the signal amplitude being redu ed by the auto gain ontroller.
Without knowing the SNR, this amplitude annot be determined.
Here, we propose a new estimator whi h is similar to the Reed estimator, but we estimate the amplitude of the re eived symbol from the hard de isions of the turbo de oder.
The varian e, an be estimated by
2
^j2+1 = E [(Xj
^j )2
= E [Xj ^j
2
where E[ is the sample average and ^j is the mean amplitude of the estimated re eived
data blo k j
1 NX ^
^j =
dk;j rk;j
N
1
k=0
104
rk;j is the re eived symbol at time k in blo k j and d^k;j is the hard de ision output of the
turbo de oder after an integer number of iterations. E [Xj2 is estimated by
N
X
1
E [Xj '
(rk;j ) :
1
N k=0
The varian e is averaged at ea h de oded blo k using (5.3).
5.4 Varian e estimator performan e

This se tion illustrates the performan e of the varian e estimators for a PCCC and
SCCC.
5.4.1
PCCC
Figures 5.9, 5.10 and 5.11 present a performan e omparison between dierent varian e estimators for a four state rate 1/3 PCCC with S-random interleaver sizes of 384
(S=11), 4096 (S=25) and 8192 (S=35) bits, respe tively. Six PCCC de oder iterations
were performed before a hard de ision was made.
As we an see, the Summer, Reed and New Reed methods perform very well for
all interleaver sizes. There is no dieren e in BER performan e for all three estimator
s hemes. Note that the Reed estimator annot be implemented in pra tise sin e the a tual
signal amplitude is not known.
5.4.2
SCCC
Figures 5.12, 5.13 and 5.14 present performan e omparisons between dierent varian e estimators for a four state rate 1/3 SCCC and six iterations. Three dierent pseudorandom interleaver sizes were simulated: 384, 2048 and 8192 bits. For SCCCs the
performan e of the estimators are quite similar to the PCCC. For the three blo k sizes
simulated all three varian e estimators perform quite well. However, the Reed estimator
does perform a fra tion of a dB worse than the other two estimator at low Eb/No.
It also appears from the simulations that the performan e of the Summer estimator
degrades for low Eb =N . This ould be due to the fa t that the outer de oder does not
0
105
10
Exact
Summer
Reed
New Reed
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Eb/No (dB)
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Figure 5.9: Performan e omparison between dierent varian e estimators, four state,
rate 1/3 PCCC, N=384 and six iterations.
1
10
Exact
Summer
Reed
New Reed
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.2
1.4
Eb/No (dB)
106
10
Exact
Summer
Reed
New Reed
2
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Eb/No (dB)
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
dire tly use the re eived data, depending entirely on the output of the inner de oder.
This varian e estimation error from the inner de oder will thus be amplied by the outer
de oder.
5.5 Mean Squared Error Performan e

In Table 5.1 we have the mean squared error performan e for ea h estimator with
dierent varian e values for a four state SCCC de oder with a blo k size of 384. As an
be seen from the results the mean squared error for three dierent values of range from
0.001 to 0.01. Hen e the estimated varian e generated by all three estimation s hemes
are very lose to the a tual hannel varian e.
2
5.6 Con lusion

In this hapter we studied the ee t of varian e mismat h for PCCCs and SCCCs.
107
10
Perfect estimation
Summer
Reed
New Reed
1
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
2.5
Eb/No (dB)
Figure 5.12: Performan e omparison between dierent varian e estimators, four state
rate 1/3 SCCC, N=384 and six iterations.
0
10
Perfect estimation
Summer
Reed
New Reed
1
10
BER
10
10
10
10
0.5
1.5
Eb/No (dB)
108
10
Perfect estimation
Summer
Reed
New Reed
10
BER
10
10
10
10
10
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Eb/No (dB)
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Estimator =1.191612 =1.062025 =0.946531
Summer 1.536258e-02 5.144830e-03 1.350778e-03
Reed
8.565042e-03 1.387372e-03 2.243528e-03
New Reed 1.214932e-02 4.511558e-03 3.999086e-03
Table 5.1: Mean Squared Error for dierent estimators with blo k size of 384.
2
We found that SCCCs are more sensitive to varian e mismat h ompared to PCCCs. Two
dierent varian e estimators that were applied to PCCCs were reviewed and applied to
SCCCs to test its performan e. It was found that the Reed estimator made an unrealisti
assumption that the signal amplitude is known. We orre ted this in the New Reed
estimator. We found that the Summer estimator, Reed estimator and the New Reed
estimator perform very well for both large and small blo k sizes.
109
Chapter 6
Con lusion
6.1 Summary of results
In Chapter 3 riteria for good CCs for PCCCs were investigated. Previous ode
sear hes were based on nding CCs that maximised ee tive free distan e. Ee tive free
distan e is the minimum free distan e that is generated by an input weight two odeword.
Based on the uniform bound we found that in addition to maximising the ee tive free
distan e, we should also minimise the number of nearest neighbors. The number of nearest
neighbours is determined by nding the number of times input weight two error paths
remerge with the zero state. We also found that for some CCs whi h have high ode
rate, there are very likely multiple generator polynomials having identi al ee tive free
distan e and number of nearest neighbours. Additional riteria, namely dmin ; Nmin; d
and N were used to nd the best CC. We found some odes that are identi al to those
published in [43 as well as some odes that should perform better sin e we maximised
both ee tive free distan e and minimum distan e.
3
We also looked at three dierent ways of nding the distan e spe trum of CCs. The
rst method uses the modied state diagram and Mason's formula to nd the generating
fun tion of the onvolutional ode. The se ond method uses the state transition matrix
to solve the state equation going into the terminal state. This results in a generating
fun tion of the onvolutional ode. The third method uses the unidire tional algorithm
whi h is similar to the Viterbi algorithm. This last method is easier to program sin e it
110
involves systemati extension of paths from ea h state of the trellis se tion to nd error
paths that remerges with the zero state.
Using the unidire tional algorithm the best CCs were found for rate 1/2, 1/3, 1/4,
1/5, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5, 5/6 and pun tured 1/2. From the trun ated uniform bound of these
odes, we found that the BER performan e with maximum likelihood de oding is improved
by in reasing the memory of the CC.
In Chapter 4 we investigated dierent types of interleavers that an be used for
PCCCs and SCCCs. First, we looked at the generation method of two types of blo k
interleaver: row- olumn blo k interleaver and blo k heli al interleaver. These interleavers
are based on writing ea h element row by row and reading ea h element a ording to a
dierent pattern. We then looked at ir ular interleavers, whi h are based on the ir ular
shift of ea h elements with step size a. This type of interleaver is more random ompared
to blo k interleavers and relatively easy to generate in real time. We also looked at
pseudo-random interleavers whi h are generated randomly. Although it an give better
performan e, they are quite hard to generate in real time without the use of large lookup
tables.
We also looked at various interleaver properties that an be used to improve the
performan e of PCCCs. First, we looked at the S distan e property. This ensures an
S distan e separation between the urrent elements and S neighbouring elements. This
property, if ombined with pseudo-random interleaving, performs quite well with both
PCCCs and SCCCs. The next property, the mod-k property, an be used to redu e the
problem of uneven error prote tion aused by parity pun turing of PCCCs. The property
ensures that every information bit, after pun turing, will be uniformly prote ted. This
property, if ombined with pseudo-random interleaving, an outperform a pseudo-random
interleaver for pun tured PCCCs.
The last property we investigated is the symmetri property. An interleaver with this
property will have identi al interleave and deinterleave patterns. This property has the
advantage of a simpler implementation sin e only one interleave sequen e is required. A
111
quadrati interleaver is one type of interleaver that an have this symmetri property. It
is also possible to generate symmetri interleavers using the ir ular, blo k, blo k heli al
and pseudo-random interleavers.
We found that if we ombined the S-distan e, mod-k and symmetri properties for
PCCCs, we an a hieve better performan e ompared to interleavers with only one property. For SCCCs, the symmetri property was found to redu e performan e for some
interleaver sizes.
In Chapter 5 we looked at varian e estimation methods for SCCCs. It was found
in [63, 64 that the BER performan e degradation of PCCCs is small if the estimated
varian e is below the a tual varian e value. We studied the ee t on performan e for
SCCCs if there are mismat hes in varian e estimation. We found that SCCCs are more
sensitive to varian e errors. If the estimated Eb =N is 0.5 to 1 dB above the true Eb =N
the performan e starts to degrade. However, if the estimated Eb =N is 0.5 to 1 dB below
the true Eb=N , in some ases we a hieve better performan e. This is a strange ee t that
we ould not explain. For estimated Eb=N greater than 1 dB below the true Eb =N , the
performan e qui kly degrades.
Two dierent varian e estimation s hemes that were proposed were investigated for
PCCCs and SCCCs. We had to modify one of the s hemes to take into a ount that the
re eived signal amplitude is usually not known. We found that both s hemes perform
quite well for SCCCs, in some ases even better than the true varian e ase. This might
due to the fa t that under estimation works better for SCCCs.
0
6.2 Areas for Future Resear h

There are a number of areas that require further investigation. In Chapter 2 we found
better CCs up to rate 5/6 for k/(k+1) odes and 1/5 for 1/n. It would be interesting
to extend the results to higher rates and memory. This will allow more ombinations
of dierent PCCC ode rates and omplexities. Also, optimum CCs for rate ompatible
turbo odes will be an interesting resear h topi .
112
Re ently, there is a new type of interleaver based on the Golden ratio whi h an lower
the are of the PCCCs for bit error rate and frame error rate. It would be interesting
to see how this interleaver stru ture an be integrated with the mod-k and symmetri
properties so that it an further improve performan e.
The ee t of a hieving better SCCC performan e if the varian e is slightly over
estimated requires further study. It is not lear why this would happen to SCCCs sin e
it does not appear for PCCCs. If we an explain this behaviour we might be able to nd
a better SCCC de oder.
113
Bibliography
[1 C. Berrou, A. Glavieux, and P. Thitiumjshima, \Near Shannon limit error orre ting
oding: Turbo odes," in Intl. Conf. on Commun., (Geneva, Switzerland), pp. 1064{
1070, May 1993.
[2 S. Benedetto, R. Garello, and G. Montorsi, \A sear h for good onvolutional odes
to be used in the onstru tion of turbo odes," IEEE Trans. on Commun., vol. 46,
pp. 1101{1105, Sept. 1998.
[3 M. S. C. Ho, S. S. Pietrobon, and T. Giles, \Improving the onstituent odes of
turbo en oders," in Pro eeding 1998 IEEE Global Tele ommuni ations Conferen e,
(Sydney, Australia), pp. 3525{3529, November 1998.
[4 S. Dolinar and D. Divsalar, \Weight distribution for turbo odes using random and
nonrandom permutations," JPL TDA Progress Report, pp. 56{65, Aug. 1995.
[5 S. A. Barbules u and S. S. Pietrobon, \Interleaver design for turbo odes," Ele troni
Letters, vol. 30, pp. 2107{2108, De . 1994.
[6 S. Crozier, J. Lodge, P. Guinand, and A. Hunt, \Performan e of turbo- odes with
relative prime and golden interleaving strategies," in Pro eeding Sixth International
Mobile Satellite Conferen e, (Ottawa), pp. 268{275, June 1999.
[7 M. S. C. Ho, S. S. Pietrobon, and T. Giles, \Interleavers for pun tured turbo odes,"
in Pro eedings APCC/ICCS '98, vol. 2, (Singapore), pp. 520{524, Nov. 1998.
[8 S. S. Pietrobon and A. S. Barbules u, \A simpli ation of the modied Bahl de oding
algorithm for systemati onvolutional odes," in Int. Symp. on Inform. Theory and
its Appli ations, (Sydney, Australia), pp. 1073{1077, Nov. 1994.
[9 S. S. Pietrobon, \Implementation and performan e of a turbo/MAP de oder," Int.
J. of Satellite Commun., vol. 16, pp. 23{46, Jan./Feb. 1998.
[10 P. Robertson, E. Villebrun, and P. Hoeher, \A omparison of optimal MAP de oding algorithms operating in the log domain," in Pro . IEEE Int. Conf. Commun.,
(Seattle, USA), pp. 1009{1013, June 1995.
114
[11 L. Bahl, J. Co ke, F. Jelinek, and J. Raviv, \Optimal de oding of linear odes for
minimizing symbol error rate," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. IT-20, pp. 284{287,
1974.
[12 D. G. Forney, Jr., Con atenated odes. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1966.
[13 S. Benedetto, D. Divsalar, G. Montorsi, and F. Pollara, \Serial on atenation of interleaved odes: Performan e analysis, design, and iterative de oding," IEEE Trans.
Inform. Theory, vol. 44, pp. 909{926, May 1998.
[14 R. W. Chang and J. C. Han o k, \On re eiver stru tures for hannels having memory," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. IT-12, pp. 463{468, O t. 1966.
[15 A. J. Viterbi, \An intuitive justi ation and a simplied implementation of the MAP
de oder for onvolutional odes," IEEE J. Sele ted Areas Commun., vol. 16, Feb.
1998.
[16 J. Hagenauer and P. Hoeher, \A Viterbi algorithm with soft-de ision outputs and
its appli ations," in Pro . IEEE GLOBECOM, (Dallas, USA), pp. 1680{1686, Nov.
1989.
[17 J. Hagenauer, P. Robertson, and L. Papke, \Iterative (\TURBO") de oding of systemati onvolutional odes with the MAP and SOVA algorithms," in Pro . of the
ITG Conf. \Sour e and Channel Coding", (Muni h, Germany), pp. 21{29, 1994.
[18 Y. Li, B. Vu eti , Y. Sato, and Y. Furuya, \A soft-output Viterbi algorithm," in
Mobile and Personal Commun. Systems Conferen e, (Adelaide, Australia), pp. 223{
231, Nov. 1992.
[19 C. Berrou, P. Adde, E. Angui, and S. Faudeil, \A low omplexity soft-output viterbi
de oder ar hite ture," in IEEE Int. Conf. on Communi ations, (Geneva), pp. 737{
740, May 1993.
[20 L. Bahl, J. Co ke, F. Jelinek, and J. Raviv, \Optimal de oding of linear odes for
minimizing symbol error rate," in Pro . IEEE Int. Symp. on Information Theory,
(Asilmoar, CA), p. 90, May 1972.
[21 P. L. M Adam, L. R. Wel h, and C. L. Weber, \M.A.P. bit de oding of onvolutional
odes," in Pro . IEEE Int. Symp. on Information Theory, (Asilomar, CA), p. 91, May
1972.
[22 S. A. Barbules u, R. Chang, and S. Yaghmour, \Turbo ode -QPSK modem for
Intelsat digital servi es," in Pro eedings of 2nd International Symposium on Turbo
Codes and Related Topi s, (Brest, Fran e), pp. 487{490, 4-7 September 2000.
115
[23 S. Benedetto, D. Divsalar, G. Montorsi, and F. Pollara, \A soft-input soft-output

maximum a posteriori (MAP) module to de ode parallel and serial on atenated
odes," JPL TDA Progress Report, vol. 42, pp. 1{20, Nov. 1996.
[24 W. Ko h and A. Baier, \Optimum and sub-optimum dete tion of oded data distributed by time varying intersymbol interferen e," in Pro eedings of GLOBECOM
1990, (San Diego, CA), pp. 1679{1684, De . 1990.
[25 J. Erfanian, S. Pasupathy, and G. Gulak, \Redu ed omplexity symbol dete tors
with parallel stru tures for ISI hannels," IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. COM-42,
pp. 1661{1671, 1994.
[26 P. Robertson, E. Villebrun, and P. Hoeher, \A omparison of optimal and suboptimal MAP de oding algorithms operating in the Log domain," in Pro eedings of
ICC 1995, (Seattle, WA), pp. 1009{1013, June 1995.
[27 M. P. C. Fossorier, F. Burket, S. Lin, and J. Hagenauer, \On the equivalen e between
SOVA and Max-Log-MAP de odings," IEEE Communi ations Letters, vol. Vol. 2,
pp. 137{139, May 1998.
[28 Y. Li, B. Vu eti , and Y. Sato, \Optimum soft-output dete tion for hannels with
inter-symbol inferen e," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 41, pp. 704{713, May
1995.
[29 B. Vu eti , \Iterative de oding algorithms," in The International Symposium on
Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communi ations, (Helsinki, Finland), Sept. 1-4
1997.
[30 A. J. Viterbi, \Error bounds for onvolutional odes and an asymptoti ally optimum
de oding algorithm," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 13, pp. 260{269, April 1967.
[31 B. Vu eti and J. Yuan, Turbo Codes Prin iples and Appli ations. Kluwer A ademi
Publishers, 2000.
[32 P. Jung and M. .Nasshan, \Performan e evaluation of turbo odes for short frame
transmission systems," Ele troni s Letters, vol. 30, pp. 111{112, Jan. 1994.
[33 P. Robertson, \Improving de oder and ode stru ture of parallel on atenated re ursive systemati (turbo) odes," Third Annual Intl. Conf. on Univeral Personal
Commum., pp. 183{187, Sept. 1994.
[34 M. Reed and S. Pietrobon, \Turbo- ode termination s hemes and a novel alternative
for short frames," IEEE PIMRC, 1996.
[35 O. Y. Takeshita, O. M. Collins, P. C. Massey, and D. J. Costello, Jr., \A note on
asymmetri turbo- odes," IEEE Communi ations Letters, vol. 3, pp. 69{71, Mar h
1999.
116
[36 P. K. Gray, Serially on atenated trellis oded modulation. PhD thesis, Univ. of South
Australia, Mar h 1999.
[37 J. Sun, W. Qi, W. H. Mow, and K. H. Li, \Turbo odes with short memory omponent
odes," in Pro eedings APCC/ICCS '98., vol. 2, (Singapore), pp. 530{534, 1998.
[38 J. Y. Couleaud, \High gain oding s hemes for spa e ommuni ations," ENSICA
Final Year Proje t Report, University of South Australia, Sept. 1995.
[39 P. Elias, \Coding for noisy hannel," IRE Conv. Re ., no. 4, pp. 37{47, 1955.
[40 S. Lin and D. J. Costello, Jr., Error Control Coding: Fundamental and Appli ations.
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Prenti e-Hall, 1983.
[41 S. B. Wi ker, Error Control Systems for Digital Communi ation and Storage. Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Prenti e Hall, 1995.
[42 J. L. Massey, Threshold De oding. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1963.
[43 S. Benedetto and G. Montorsi, \Unveiling turbo odes: Some results on parallel
on atenated oding s hemes," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 42, pp. 409{429,
Mar h 1996.
[44 L. C. Perez, J. Seghers, and D. J. Costello, Jr., \A distan e spe trum interpretation
of turbo odes," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 42, pp. 1698{1709, Nov. 1996.
[45 D. Divsalar and P. Pollara, \Turbo odes for PCS appli ations," in Pro eedings of
IEEE ICC'95, pp. 54{59, June 1995.
[46 J. G. C. Clark and J. B. Cain, Error-Corre tion Coding for Digital Communi ations.
New York: Plenum Press, 1981.
[47 S. Mason and H. Zimmermann, Ele troni Cir uits, Signals, and Systems. New York:
Wiley, 1960.
[48 L. R. Bahl, C. D. Cullum, W. D. Frazer, and F. Jelinek, \An e ient algorithm
for omputing free distan e," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. IT-18, pp. 437{439,
May 1972.
[49 W. W. Peterson and E. J. WeldonJr, Error-Corre ting Codes. Cambridge: The MIT
Press, 1961.
[50 D. Divsalar and F. Pollara, \Hybrid on atenated odes and iterative de oding,"
JPL TDA Progress Report, pp. 1{23, Aug. 1997.
[51 S. S. Pietrobon, R. H. Deng, A. Lafane hhre, G. Ungerboe k, and D. J. Costello, Jr.,
\Trellis- oded multidimensional phase modulation," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory,
vol. 36, pp. 63{89, Jan. 1990.
117
[52 D. Divsalar and F. Pollara, \On the design of turbo odes," JPL TDA Progess Report,
pp. 99{121, Nov. 1995.
[53 J. B. Cain, G. C. Clark, Jr., and J. M. Geist, \Pun tured onvolutional odes of rate
(n-1)/n and simplied maximum likelihood de oding," IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory,
vol. IT-25, pp. 97{100, Jan. 1979.
[54 J. Hokfelt, T. Maseng, and O. Edfors, \Assessing interleaver suitability for turbo
odes.," in To appear in Nordi Radio Symposium 1998, (Saltsjobaden, Sweden),
O t. 1998.
[55 Small World Communi ations, \ Iterative De oding of Parallel Con atenated Convolutional Codes", Jan. 1999. Appli ation Note Version 1.4.
[56 O. Y. Takeshita and D. J. Costello, Jr., \New lasses of algebrai interleavers for
turbo- odes," in Pro eedings of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, (MIT, Cambridge, MA USA), p. 419, Aug. 1998.
[57 A. S. Barbules u and S. S. Pietrobon, \Interleaver design for three dimensional turbo
odes," IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, p. 37, Sept. 1995.
[58 T. S. Rappaport, Wireless Communi ations Prin iples and Pra ti e. NJ, USA: Prenti e Hall, 1996.
[59 J. G. Proakis, Digital Communi ations. M Graw-Hill Book Co., 3 ed., 1995.
[60 D. T. Chi, \A new blo k heli al interleaver," in Pro eedings of MILCOM 1992, (San
Diego, CA), pp. 799{804, O t. 1992.
[61 A. S. Barbules u and S. S. Pietrobon, \Terminating the trellis of turbo odes in the
same state," Ele troni s Letters, vol. 31, pp. 22{23, Jan. 1995.
[62 S. Dolinar, D. .Divsalar, and F. Pollara, \Code performan e as a fun tion of blo k
size," TMO Progess Report, vol. 42, May 1998.
[63 M. Reed and J. Asenstorfer, \A novel varian e estimator for turbo- ode de oding,"
in Pro . ICT '97, (Melbourne, Australia), pp. 173{178, April 1997.
[64 T. A. Summers and S. G. Wilson, \SNR mismat h and online estimation in turbo
de oding," IEEE Transa tions on Communi ations, vol. 46, pp. 421{423, April 1998.
[65 The Mathworks, In ., The Student Edition of Matlab. New Jersey, USA: Prenti e-Hall
International Editions, 1992.
118
Appendix A
Performan e bounds of PCCC
This appendix ontains the performan e bounds of PCCC with rate 1/2, 1/3, 2/3, pun tured 1/2, 3/4, 1/4, 1/5 and 4/5 CC.
0
10
s=2
s=4
s=8
s=16
s=32
s=64
10
10
10
BER
10
10
10
12
10
14
10
16
10
18
10
20
10
5
Eb/No (dB)
10
Figure A.1: Trun ated union bound for rate 1/5 PCCC with 1024 bits interleaver, with
2 state to 64 state rate 1/3 onstituent odes.
119
10
s=2
s=4
s=8
s=16
s=32
s=64
10
10
10
BER
10
10
10
12
10
14
10
16
10
18
10
20
10
5
Eb/No (dB)
10
0
10
s=2
s=4
s=8
s=16
s=32
s=64
s=128
10
10
10
BER
10
10
10
12
10
14
10
16
10
18
10
20
10
5
Eb/No (dB)
10
2 state to 128 state pun tured rate 1/2 onstituent odes.
120
10
s=2
s=4
s=8
s=16
s=32
10
10
10
BER
10
10
10
12
10
14
10
16
10
18
10
20
10
5
Eb/No (dB)
10
0
10
s=2
s=4
s=8
s=16
s=32
10
10
10
BER
10
10
10
12
10
14
10
16
10
18
10
20
10
5
Eb/No (dB)
10
2 state to 32 state pun tured rate 1/4 onstituent odes.
121
10
s=2
s=4
s=8
s=16
10
10
10
BER
10
10
10
12
10
14
10
16
10
18
10
20
10
5
Eb/No (dB)
10
0
10
s=4
s=8
s=16
s=32
10
10
10
BER
10
10
10
12
10
14
10
16
10
18
10
20
10
5
Eb/No (dB)
10
122
Appendix B
Interleaver generator ow diagram
Figure B.1 shows the ow diagram for the generation of mod-k S-random interleavers.Figure
B.2 shows the ow diagram for the generation of symmetri interleaver with distan e S
and mod-k properties .
123
Generate an empty interl_array,

empty reject_array and num
_array with numbers from 0 to N-1.
No
num_
array
size>0?
No
interl_
array
size=N?
Yes
Yes
Randomly pick a number from the
num_array. Decrease size of
num_array by 1.
END
Check the S-distance property
of the newly generated number.
Set the flag if pass.
Check the mod-k property of the

newly generated number. Set
the flag pass.
Put the rejected number into

the reject_array. Increase
reject_array size by 1.
Yes
number
rejected?
Empty reject_array.
No
Put the accepted number into

the interl_array. Increase
interl_array size by 1.
If reject_array size>0, put all the

rejected numbers back into the
number array.
Figure B.1: Flow diagram of a mod-k interleaver generator with S distan e property.
124
Generate an empty interl_array,

empty reject_array and num_array
with numbers from 0 to N-1.
No
num_array
size>0?
No
interl_array
size=N?
Yes
Yes
Get the address of the first nonempty element in interl_array.
END
Randomly pick a number from
the num_array.
If number equal address, set the

single number flag.
Check for S-distance property for

both forward and backward direction
of each numbers. Set the flag if pass.
Check for mod-k property of each

number, set the flag if pass.
Move the rejected number

to the reject_array. Reduce
num_array size by 1.
Empty reject_array.
Yes
number
rejected?
No
If single number flag set, move

only the generated number into
intl_array. Else move both num.
If reject_array size>0,
put all the reject numbers
into num_array.
Figure B.2: Flow diagram of a symmetri interleaver with S and mod-k properties.
125
Appendix C
Matlab ode for Chapter 4
This is the Matlab ode used to nd the a parameters for the ir ular symmetri interleaver.
N=4096;
m=(1:N)-1;
a=sqrt((m*N)+1);
a integer=a(nd((a- oor(a))==0));
126
Appendix D
Matlab ode for Chapter 5
This is the Matlab ode used to generate the oe ients for the third order polynomial
used by the Summer estimator.
N=50000;
R=1/3; % ode rate
data=2* eil(rand(1,N)-0.5)-1; %generate data and add noise
noise=randn(1,N);
db=[-2:1:5;
varian e=1./(R*2*10.^(db./10));
std=sqrt(1./(R*2*10.^(db./10)));
rat=0;
%evaluate the ratio of the re eived data
for i=1:max(size(std))
rx=data+(noise*std(i));
rat(i)=mean(rx.^2)/(mean(abs(rx)).^2);
end
%nd the oe ient of third order polynomial using polyt
P=polyt(rat,varian e,3);
plot(varian e,rat,P(1).*rat.^3+P(2).*rat.^2+P(3).*rat+P(4),rat,'s-.');
127
grid on
xlabel('Channel Varian e');
ylabel('f(x)');
legend('true','estimated');
128

Serial and Parallel Turbo Codes

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Serial and Parallel Turbo Codes

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Serial and Parallel Con

Institute for Tele ommuni ations Resear h

Submitted for the degree of

1.1 Summary of ontributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 Fundamentals of Turbo odes

2.1 Introdu tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 Constituent odes for PCCC de oders.

3.1 Introdu tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4.1 Introdu tion . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 Varian e estimation for PCCCs and SCCCs

5.1 Introdu tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6.1 Summary of results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

A Performan e bounds of PCCC

B Interleaver generator ow diagram

C Matlab ode for Chapter 4

D Matlab ode for Chapter 5

Stru ture of a digital ommuni ation system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

redu e interleaver implementation omplexity. Interleavers an also be modi ed so that

Figure 1.1: Stru ture of a digital ommuni ation system.

1.1 Summary of ontributions

well as minimum number of nearest neighbours.

one ode has identi al distan e properties.

were al ulated. We found that we do get improvement as the omplexity

{ We nd the performan e of symmetri interleavers (interleavers whi h have

identi al interleave and deinterleave sequen es) have identi al performan e

better results than those with only a single property.

that a spread interleaver works best.

PCCCs. Slightly overestimating the varian e was found to in rease performan e.

2.2 System stru ture

Figure 2.1: Stru ture of a digital ommuni ation system.

Figure 2.2: PCCC en oder stru ture.

(b) Rate 1/3 RSC encoder.

Figure 2.4: SCCC en oder stru ture.

2.3 Con ept of iterative de oding

Figure 2.5: Stru ture of an iterative de oder.

2.4 Component de oder for PCCCs and SCCCs

MAP de oding algorithm

Using Bayes' rule (2.5) an be rewritten as

= P r(Rk jdk = i; Sk = m; RkN )

P r(R1k 1jdk = i; Sk = m; RkN ) = P r(R1k 1jSk = m) = km :

Substituting (2.8), (2.9) and (2.10) into (2.7) we obtain

The forward state metri km an be re ursively al ulated using

Figure 2.6: The al ulation of km .

= k ki exp[L (xk i + yk i;m)

Figure 2.7: The al ulation of km .

Log-MAP de oding algorithm

b  ln(e x + e y ) = min(x; y ) ln(1 + e jx yj):

lookup table for the log(1 + e x) expression. We let

Equations (2.6), (2.12) and (2.13) of the MAP algorithm be ome

The bran h metri in (2.14) be omes

ln k ln ki L (xk i + yk i;m)

Max-log-MAP de oding algorithm

2.5 Iterative de oding of PCCCs and SCCCs

performan e between no termination, single termination and dual termination s hemes

 First PCCC iteration:

 Third PCCC iteration:

 Sixth PCCC iterations:

Figure 2.11: SCCC de oder stru ture.

Comparison of PCCCs and SCCCs

2.6 Turbo odes with asymmetri omplexity

of ea h onstituent en oder should asymptoti ally improve the performan e of PCCCs.

Table 2.1: Rate 1/2 RSC generator polynomials.

2.7 Con lusion

redu e interleaver implementation omplexity. Interleavers an also be modied so that

= k ki exp[L (xk i + yk i;m)

b ln(e x + e y ) = min(x; y ) ln(1 + e jx yj):

ln k ln ki L (xk i + yk i;m)

First PCCC iteration:

Third PCCC iteration:

Sixth PCCC iterations:

Figure 3.3: Modied state diagram of Figure 3.2.

ACw1 (Z ) ACw2 (Z )

Table 3.1: Generator polynomials with dierent number of neighbours.

3.6 Ee tive free distan e and minimum distan e