In this paper, we evaluate the performance of single- and multi-antenna multi-carrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) downlink (base station to mobile terminal) systems in single- and multi-cell environments. We first propose a minimum mean square error (MMSE) filter with a Gaussian approximation for a single input single output (SISO) MC-CDMA downlink system. Then, we apply it to a SIMO (single input multiple output) system with a conventional turbo coding. Furthermore, we compare the performance of SISO (11) and SIMO (12) MC-CDMA systems with that of a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) (22) system employing space-time turbo coded modulation (STTuCM) in a multi-cell environment with 7 cells by computer simulation. Based on the computer simulation results, it is found that the considered MIMO system can achieve twofold capacity with the same transmission power in the multi-cell environment.

Parallel concatenated convolutional codes, turbo codes, are very attractive scheme at a point of view of an error probability performance. An bit error rate (BER) evaluation for turbo codes is done by a uniform interleaver bound calculation and/or a computer simulation. The former is calculated under the assumption of uniform interleaver, and is only effective for an BER evaluation with a pseudo random interleaver. The latter dose not have any interleaver restrictions. However, for a very low BER evaluation, it takes enormous simulation time. In this paper, a new error probability evaluation method for turbo codes is proposed. It is based on the error event simulation method. For each evaluation for the predetermined error sequence, importance sampling, which is one of the fast simulation methods, is applied. To prove the effectiveness of the proposed method, numerical examples are shown. The proposed method well approximates the BER at the error floor region. Under the same accuracy, the IS estimation time at BER = 10-7 is reduced to 1/6358 of the ordinary Monte-Carlo simulation time.

In this letter, we propose an adaptive turbo coded modulation scheme for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), and three power allocation algorithms with transmit power variable over subcarriers, variable over subbands and constant over subcarriers. Our object is to improve the overall throughput under target bit-error-rate (BER). Simulation results show that our fixed power adaptation scheme exhibits a more than 7 dB signal-noise-ratio (SNR) gain relative to non-adaptive turbo coded modulation, and an about 2 dB additional gain can be achieved with our variable power algorithm employed. We also discuss the effect of the number of subbands on throughput performance in our adaptive scheme.

For an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, a performance evaluation of parallel concatenated turbo trellis-coded modulation (turbo TCM) using bit-interleavers is reported. By obtaining weight distribution, the performance is evaluated by using a union bound method. Comparison between the result of evaluated performance and simulation results is shown, and the usefulness of the evaluated performance is shown. An optimum code and an optimum mapping are sought. The result of the optimum code with the optimum mapping is a new interleaver size N dependency which is proportional to N-3. It is better than the interleaver size dependency for Benedetto code with the natural mapping which is proportional to N-1. The reasons why these dependencies can happen are also discussed.

A method for estimating the bit-error rate (BER) of turbo codes called the Monte Carlo distance spectrum method is proposed. Testing this method shows that the estimated BER curves closely approximate the results of a Monte Carlo simulation.

Rate compatible (RC) codes are used for adaptive coding schemes or hybrid ARQ schemes in order to adapt varying channel conditions. This can improve overall service quality or the system throughput. Conventional RC codes have usually been designed on the basis of convolutional codes. This letter proposes an efficient RC code based on block codes. We use a high dimensional product code and divide it into the information block and a number of parity blocks. We form RC product codes using various combinations of these blocks. Because we can decode the RC product codes iteratively, these result in block turbo codes and they can be used efficiently for hybrid ARQ schemes.

Turbo codes are of particular use in applications of wireless communication systems, where various types of communication are required and the data rate must be changed, depending on the situation. In such applications, adaptation of turbo coding specifications is required in terms of coding block size, data speed, parity bit arrangement or configuration of a convolutional coder, as well as the need for real time processing. We present new ideas to provide these capabilities for a low power decoder circuit by focusing on the configuration of a convolutional decoding algorithm, which occupies a significant proportion of the hardware circuit. We utilize the Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm (SOVA) for the base algorithm, produced by adding the concept of a soft output to the Viterbi Algorithm (VA). The Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) algorithm and its simplified version of MAX-LOG-MAP are also widely known. MAP is recognized as a means of achieving very good bit error rate (BER) characteristics. On the other hand SOVA has been regarded as a method which can be simply implemented with less computational resources, but at a cost of higher degradation. However, in many of recent systems we combine turbo coding with some other method such as Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) to maintain a good error correction performance and we only have to pay attention to the performance in the range of low carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR), where SOVA has fairly satisfactory BER characteristics. This makes the SOVA approach attractive for a low power programmable IP macro solution, when the fundamental advantage of SOVA is fully utilized in the implementation of an LSI circuit. We discuss the processing algorithm and circuit configuration and show that about 40% reduction in power consumption can be achieved. It is also shown that the IP macro can handle 1.5 Mbps information decoding at 100 MHz clock rate.

In this letter, a fixed-power variable-rate turbo coded modulation scheme for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is proposed and subband adaptation algorithm based on capacity evaluation is presented. Our object is to improve the overall throughput under target bit-error-rate (BER). Simulation results show that our adaptive OFDM scheme exhibits an about 2.5-5 dB signal-noise-ratio (SNR) gain with target BER of 10-4 and subband number of 16 relative to fixed threshold adaptive turbo coded modulation. Moreover, unlike fixed threshold adaptation, with the number of subband decreased, throughput performance is not degraded due to our capacity evaluation algorithm.

A new stopping criterion of turbo decoding based on the maximum a posteriori (MAP) decoder is proposed and applied to the turbo processing system. The new criterion suggested as the combined parity check (CPC) counts the sign difference between combined parity bits and the re-encode parity bits determined from decoded information bits. The CPC requires decoded parity bits and a turbo encoder but it performs better in terms of the bit error rate and the average number of iterations in the turbo processing system.

This letter examines a very simple iterative chip-by-chip multiuser detection strategy for spread spectrum communication systems. An interleaving-based multiple-access transmission technique is employed to facilitate detection. The proposed scheme can achieve near single-user performance in situations with very large numbers of users while maintaining very low receiver complexity.

A new algorithm for the LogMAP decoding of linear block codes is considered. The decoding complexity is evaluated analytically and by computer simulation. The proposed algorithm is an improvement of the recursive LogMAP algorithm proposed by the authors. The recursive LogMAP algorithm is more efficient than the BCJR algorithm for low-rate codes, but the complexity grows considerably large for high-rate codes. The aim of the proposed algorithm is to solve the complexity explosion of the recursive LogMAP algorithm for high-rate codes. The proposed algorithm is more efficient than the BCJR algorithm for well-known linear block codes.

Space-Time Turbo code is an effective method for the enhancement of link capacity and maximizing the link-budget by balancing the coding gain obtained via Turbo codes and the diversity gain obtained through multiple antenna transmission. A study on an antenna selection scheme for Space-Time Turbo code for OFDM systems is presented in this paper. In the proposed method, the systematic bits and the punctured parity bits are sent from the selected antenna for each sub-carrier, while data transmission is suspended from the antenna experiencing poor channel conditions at the receiver. Simulation results show that the proposed method yields a 2.2 dB gain in the required TxEb/N0 relative to the conventional method, and makes the channel estimation accuracy more robust. Moreover, the proposed method reduces transmission power by about 4 dB compared to the conventional method.

Turbo coding is a powerful coding technique that can provide highly reliable data transmission at extremely low signal-to-noise ratios. Owing to the computational complexity of the employed decoding algorithm, the realization of turbo decoders usually takes a large amount of memory space and potentially long decoding delay. Therefore, an efficient memory management strategy becomes one of the key factors toward successfully implementing turbo decoders. This paper focuses on the development of general structures for efficient memory management of turbo decoders employing the sliding-window (Log-) MAP algorithm. Three different structures and the associated mathematic representations are derived to evaluate the required memory size, average decoding rate, and latency based on the speed and the number of the adopted processors. Comparative results show the dependency of the resulting performance based on a set of parameters; thus provide useful and general information on practical implementations of turbo decoders.

In this letter, we propose the Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems to improve the error rate performance of OFDM. We also evaluate the iterative decoding performance on both an AWGN and a frequency-selective fading channels. We show that when the energy per information bit to the noise power spectral density ratio Eb/N0 is not small, the LDPC coded OFDM (LDPC-COFDM) systems have the good error rate performance with a small number of iterations. We also show that when the Eb/N0 is small, the BER of the LDPC-COFDM systems is worse than that of the Turbo coded OFDM (TCOFDM) systems, while when the Eb/N0 is not small, the BER of the LDPC-COFDM systems is better with a small number of iterations.

Space-time transmit diversity (STTD) and space-time block coding (STBC) are attractive techniques for high bit-rate and high capacity transmission. The concatenation scheme of turbo codes and STBC (Turbo-STBC) was proposed and it has been shown that the Turbo-STBC can achieve the good error rate performance. Recently, low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes have attracted much attention as the good error correcting codes achieving the near Shannon limit performance like turbo codes. The decoding algorithm of LDPC codes has less complexity than that of turbo codes. Furthermore, when the block length is large, the error rate performance of the LDPC codes is better than that of the turbo codes with almost identical code rate and block length. In this letter, we propose a concatenation scheme of LDPC codes and STBC. We refer to it as the LDPC-STBC. We evaluate the error rate performance of the LDPC-STBC by the computer simulation and show that the error rate performance of the LDPC-STBC is almost identical to or better than that of the Turbo-STBC in a flat Rayleigh fading channel.

We present the channel capacity, specifically the mutual information, of an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel in the presence of phase noise, and investigate the effect of phase noise impairment on powerful error-correcting codes (ECCs) that normally operate in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regions. This channel-induced impairment is common in digital coherent transmission systems and is caused by imperfect carrier tracking of the phase error detector for coherent demodulation. It is shown through semi-analytical derivation that decreasing the information rate from its ideal capacity to an information rate lower than its inherent capacity significantly mitigates the impairment caused by phase noise, and that operating systems in the low SNR region also lessen the phase noise impairment by transforming typical phase noise behavior into Gaussian-like behavior. We also demonstrate by computer simulation using turbo-trellis coded modulation (TTCM) with high-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals that the use of capacity-approaching codes (CACs) makes transmission systems invulnerable to phase noise. To verify the effect of CACs on phase noise, simulation results of TTCM are also compared to that of trellis-coded modulation (TCM), which is used as an example of a conventional ECC operating at a relatively high SNR.

Power Line Communication (PLC) is very attractive for achieving high-rate in-home networks. Noise in power lines is modeled as a cyclostationary Gaussian process. In order to achieve reliable communication using power lines, effective measures including error control techniques need to be taken against this particular noise. This paper focuses its attention on an effect of turbo codes on PLC. We adopt two noise environments for examining the effect in terms of BER performance. The result of the examination provides that turbo codes have enough capability to limit the effect of the noise. It also provides that the effect depends on size of a channel interleaver. Since an effective SNR estimation scheme should be required to apply turbo codes to PLC, we also examine the effect of two SNR estimation schemes in terms of BER performance.

This letter contains our proposal for a new iterative decoding algorithm for Turbo coded V-BLAST system. The proposed algorithm is based on maximum a posteriori (MAP) decision criterion. In a V-BLAST system concatenated with Turbo codes, the extrinsic information from the soft output channel decoder can be utilized as a priori probability, making it possible to apply MAP decision criteria to the V-BLAST decoding process. The MAP decision criterion is applied to the V-BLAST ordering and slicing procedure, resulting in a considerable gain in bit error performance. As the iteration rate increases, the proposed system exhibits performance similar to that of system with ideal sliced.

This paper considers a wireless coherent system that enables high-speed-data transmission in the presence of carrier phase error over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. Carrier phase noise is caused by imperfect carrier tracking of the coherent demodulation. The channel characteristics of the system were modeled using phase noise whose stochastic process followed the Tikhonov distribution. For this model, we first propose an optimum detector that produces the most suitable decoding metric for a soft-input/soft-output (SISO) decoder, and then develop some simpler forms of the optimum detector to obtain efficient implementation at close to optimal performance. Those simple detectors that have a wide range of performance/complexity tradeoffs are promising in various applications. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed detectors, we have applied them to a bandwidth-efficient turbo-coded modulation scheme in which a component decoder based on SISO principles necessitates more exact channel measurement than is possible with a conventional decoder based on Viterbi decoding. Simulation results have demonstrated that the optimum detector enables excellent bit error rate (BER) performance that exceeds that with a normal detector designed for AWGN channels by more than 1 dB at a BER of 10-6 under a severe phase noise environment.

Two implementation schemes for a two-step SOVA (Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm) decoder are proposed and verified in a chip. One uses the combination of trace back (TB) logic to find the survivor state and double trace back logic to find the weighting factor of a two-step SOVA. The other is that the reliability values are divided by a scaling factor in order to compensate for the distortion brought by overestimating those values in SOVA. We introduced a fixed scaling factor of 0.25 or 0.33 for a rate 1/3 and designed an 8-state Turbo decoder with a 256-bit frame size to lower the reliability values. The implemented architecture of the two-step SOVA decoder allows important savings in area and high-speed processing compared with the one-step SOVA decoder using register exchange (RE) or trace-back (TB) method. The chip is fabricated using 0.65 µm gate array at Samsung Electronics and it shows higher SNR performance by 2 dB at the BER 10-4 than that of a two-step SOVA decoder without a scaling factor.