Stephen G. Wilson

SNR mismatch and online estimation in turbo decoding

Iterative decoding of turbo codes, as well as other concatenated coding schemes of similar nature, requires knowledge of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the channel so that proper blending of the a posteriori information of the separate decoders is achieved. We study the sensitivity of decoder performance to misestimation of the SNR, and propose a simple online scheme that estimates the unknown SNR from each code block, prior to decoding. We show that this scheme is sufficiently adequate in accuracy to not appreciably degrade the performance.

Free-space optical MIMO transmission with Q-ary PPM

The use of multiple laser transmitters combined with multiple photodetectors (PDs) is studied for terrestrial, line-of-sight optical communication. The resulting multiple-input/multiple-output channel has the potential for combatting fading effects on turbulent optical channels. In this paper, the modulation format is repetition Q-ary PPM across lasers, with intensity modulation. Ideal PDs are assumed, with and without background radiation. Both Rayleigh and log-normal fading models are treated. The focus is upon both symbol-/bit-error probability for uncoded transmission, and on constrained channel capacity.

Multiuser ML sequence estimator for convolutionally coded asynchronous DS-CDMA systems

The optimal multiuser sequence estimator is formulated for an asynchronous direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) system where each user employs convolutional coding to improve its performance on a nondispersive additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. It is shown that the decoder may be implemented efficiently using a Viterbi algorithm which operates on a time-varying trellis with a number of states which is exponential in the product of the number of users in the system and the constraint length of the codes used (for the rate 1/2 code case). The asymptotic efficiency of this receiver relative to an uncoded coherent binary phase shift keying (BPSK) receiver (termed asymptotic multiuser coding gain, or AMCG) is then upper and lower bounded. The AMCG parameter unifies the asymptotic coding gain parameter and the asymptotic multiuser efficiency parameter which are traditional figure of merit parameters for single-user coded systems and multiuser uncoded systems, respectively. Finally, some simulations are presented to illustrate the performance of the maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE) at moderate and low bit error rates.

Optical repetition MIMO transmission with multipulse PPM

We study the use of multiple laser transmitters combined with multiple photodetectors for atmospheric, line-of-sight optical communication, and focus upon the use of multiple-pulse-position-modulation as a power-efficient transmission format, with signal repetition across the laser array. Ideal (photon counting) photodetectors are assumed, with and without background radiation. The resulting multiple-input/multiple-output channel has the potential for combating fading effects on turbulent optical channels, for which both log-normal and Rayleigh-fading models are treated. Our focus is upon symbol error probability for uncoded transmission, and on capacity for coded transmission. Full spatial diversity is obtained naturally in this application.

Suboptimum multiuser receivers for convolutionally coded asynchronous DS-CDMA systems

Motivated by the high complexity of the optimal sequence estimator for convolutionally coded asynchronous code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems, developed by Giallorenzi and Wilson (see ibid., vol.44, no.8, p.997, 1996), and the potentially poor performance of the conventional receiver due to multiuser interference and the near-far problem, we examine relatively simple multiuser receivers which perform nearly as well as the optimal receiver. The multiuser receivers discussed are of two types. The first set of approaches are partitioned approaches that treat the multiuser interference equalization problem and the decoding problem separately. The second set of approaches are integrated approaches that perform both the equalization and decoding operations together. We study linear, decision feedback, and trellis/tree-based approaches in each category. The asymptotic efficiency of this receiver relative to an uncoded coherent binary phase shift keying (BPSK) receiver (termed asymptotic multiuser coding gain, or AMCG) is used as a performance criterion throughout. Also, computer simulations are used whenever the computation of the AMCG is not feasible. It is shown that a number of the approaches which are introduced achieve a high performance level with a moderate complexity.

Convolutional Coding Combined with Continuous Phase Modulation

Background theory and specific coding designs for combined coding/modulation schemes utilizing convolutional codes and continuous-phase modulation (CPM) are presented. In this paper the case of r = 1/2 coding onto a 4-ary CPM is emphasized, with short-constraint length codes presented for continuous-phase FSK, double-raised-cosine, and triple-raised-cosine modulation. Coding buys several decibels of coding gain over the Gaussian channel, with an attendant increase of bandwidth. Performance comparisons in the power-bandwidth tradeoff with other approaches are made.

Design and analysis of turbo codes on Rayleigh fading channels

The performance of turbo codes using coherent BSPK signaling on Rayleigh fading channels is considered. In regions of low signal-to-noise, performance analysis uses simulations of typical turbo coding systems. For higher signal-to-noise regions beyond simulation capabilities, an average upper bound is used, where the average is over all possible interleaving schemes. Fully-interleaved and exponentially-correlated Rayleigh channels are explored. Furthermore, the design issues relevant to turbo codes are explored for the correlated fading channel.

Multi-symbol detection of M-DPSK

The authors discuss optimal and suboptimal detection methods for improving the error performance when M-ary DPSK (differential phase shift keying) modulation is employed. All procedures use a block of N+1 measurements to produce N data decisions. The motivation is to lessen the energy penalty associated with classical DPSK detection and to approach the performance of fully-coherent detection, but without complicated feedback phase-tracking circuitry and the associated phase-acquisition time. The authors formulate optimal (block) detection under the assumption of unknown carrier phase. Performance analysis and simulation show significant improvement with increasing blocklength, but complexity increases exponentially in blocklength. Suboptimal methods are then proposed which have far less complexity, but retain the improvement over standard DPSK. The primary applications of the present work are in fast-acquisition TDMA (time-division multiple-access) systems with PSK modulation and in frequency-hopping systems using DPSK.<<ETX>>

Analysis and Design of Moderate Length Regular LDPC Codes with Low Error Floors

The traditional method to estimate code performance in the higher SNR region is to use a sum of the contributions of the most dominant error events to the probability of error. If an ML decoder is used, these events will be minimum distance codewords; the traditional decoder used in LDPC codes, some variant of the message passing algorithm, will introduce non-codeword error events known as trapping sets. For long LDPC codes it is difficult to enumerate all of these dominant error events. A procedure to efficiently find dominant error events by using the regular low-density structure of an LDPC code is presented here. The search method can be adapted to work with LDPC codes of various regular and irregular degree distributions, but is especially suited to a very practical subset of LDPC known as regular {3, 6} codes of moderate block length. We also show how codes with very low error floors can be created by utilizing this search method.

Rate 3/4 Convolutional Coding of 16-PSK: Code Design and Performance Study

Convolutional coding coupled with 16-PSK modulation is investigated for bandwidth efficient transmission. Rate 3/4, small memory codes are found which are optimized in the free-distance sense on the Gaussian channel. These codes provide up to 4.8 dB of coding gain with 32 states over uncoded 8-PSK, a scheme having the same spectral efficiency as the codes described. The performance is compared with earlier findings of Ungerboeck and some recent results on R = 2/3 coded 8-PSK. In addition, we present results of a channel transmission study to assess the performance of the four-state code on the band-limited nonlinear channel, and find that performance of the coded scheme degrades comparably with uncoded 8-PSK, i.e., coding gain is roughly preserved.