Turbo Code verses Convolutional Code

Yousef Hwegy and Manal Saad

Tripoli university
y_hwegy@yahoo.com
ma_saad08@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT to correct any errors in the received data

stream[2].
Shannon and Hamming in 1949 have given a powerful
techniques for achieving reliable data transmission 2. Convolutional Coding
using coding techniques.
In this paper, we analyze the performance of two Convolution code[1,2,3,4] are specified by three
coding techniques, which are the Convolutional code parameters (n,m,k) where, n=number of output
and the Turbo code. The Convolutional code with
bits, m=number of inputs bits, and k is the
Viterbi decoder soft and hard decisions, the
turbo code with random interleaver, and the channel is number of shift registers. The quantity k/n is
the AWGN, are all considered for the simulation in called the code rate which is a measure of the code
this work. efficiency. The constraint length of the code is
For the same message length and the same channel given by L=k(m-1).
distortion the coding techniques considered in this The constraint length of the code represents the
work are compared. This paper demonstrate that Turbo number of bits in the encoder memory that effects
code exhibit a better performance in comparison to the the generation of the n output bits. One important
Convolutional code especially at low signal to noise feature of Convolutional coding is the constraint
ratio. The Convolutional coding using Viterbi decoder length generator polynomial. This acts as trellis
soft decision provides coding gain of 2 dB in structure that provides coding gain, which does
comparison to Viterbi decoder hard decision. Also the
codec system exhibit a far better performance in
not available in other coding schemes.
comparison to non codec system that uses modulated
QPSK only.
2.1 Soft Decision Viterbi Decoding
Keywords: Turbo code, random interleaver, Viterbi
For rate binary Convolutional code system, the
decoder, Coding theory, Digital Signal Processing
demodulator delivers two code symbols at a time
1. Introduction
to decoder. With hard decision (2-levels)
Due to a wide applications of internet technology
decoding, each pair of received code symbols can
and multimedia digital communication,
be drawn on a plane, as shown in figure 1a, at
development of reliable and high speed
each corner of square. The corners are labeled as
transmission methods over wireless channels has
(0,0), (1,0), (0,0), (1,1), represented four possible
gained high importance in recent years. This
hard decision values that the two code symbols
demand has been accelerated by the emergence of
might have. While the 8-levels soft decision
large-scale, high-speed data transmission.
decoding, each pair of code symbols can be
In order to improve the performance and the
similarly represented on an equally spaced 8-
reliability of high-speed data transmission forward
levels by 8-levels, as a point from the set of 64
error correcting code (FEC) is used[1,2,3]. Error
points shown in figure 1b.
correction codes are generated in a FEC encoder
The primary difference between two kinds of
for the data stream and are sent to a receiver
Viterbi decision decoding (soft decision and hard
including a FEC decoder. The FEC decoder
decision), is that the hard decision algorithm uses
recovers the error correction codes and uses them
Hamming distance metric which is limited

ISBN: 978-0-9891305-4-7 2014 SDIWC 8

 resolution, while soft decision uses Euclidean
distance metric with more resolution.
Figure 1 (a) Hard decision plane (b) Soft decision plane
In figure 2 is the point (? , ? ), representing a pair
of noisy code-symbol values that might stem from
a demodulator. Then Euclidean distance between
the noisy point (? , ? ) and noiseless point (0,0) on
the plane as ? (? 0)2 +(? 0)2 = ? , while
the Euclidean distance between the noisy point
(? , ? ) and noiseless point (7,7) as
? (? 7)2 +(? 7)2 = ? .
a
b second encoder is an interleaved version
Figure 2 noisy point for soft decision
Figures 3a and 3b show the first section of an
encoder and decoder Trellis diagram, where the
soft decision is performed with the use Euclidean
distance,
b
a
Figure 3 (a) Encoder Trellis section (b) Decoder Trellis
section
When the pair of soft decision code symbols with
value (? , ? ) arrive at a decoder during the first
duration time as shown above figure. The metric
? , representing the Euclidean distance between
the point (? , ? ) and the point (0,0) branch word is
ISBN: 978-0-9891305-4-7 2014 SDIWC
placed on the solid line. While The metric ? ,
representing the Euclidean distance between the
point (? , ? ) and the point (7,7) code symbol is
placed on the dashed line. With comparing to
figure 3.5, encoder trellis diagram as describes
hard decision, with the branch words transformed
from binary to octal, as describes soft decision[4].
3. Turbo Codes
Turbo Codes [5,6,7,8,9,10], or parallel
concatenated Convolutional codes, represent
a way of concatenating two simple codes to
obtain an overall powerful code. After their
invention in 1993, The basic idea in Turbo
Coding is to concatenate two recursive
systematic Convolutional codes in parallel
via an interleaver. The information
sequence is divided into blocks of certain
length.
The input of the first encoder is the
information block and the input of the
of the information block. The encoded
sequence ,i.e., the codeword, corresponding
to that information sequence is then the
information block itself, the first parity
block and the second parity block. The
block diagram of the rate 1/3 Turbo Code
with 5/7 component Convolutional codes is
shown in Figure 1. To obtain a good
performance in Turbo Codes, the component
codes should be chosen as Convolutional
codes with feedback (recursive). Also the
Convolutional codes chosen should be
systematic. If not, then the non-systematic
Convolutional codes tend to be catastrophic.
A catastrophic error is defined as an event
whereby a finite number of code symbol
errors cause an infinite number of decoded
data bit errors. This happens when the feed
forward and feedback generator polynomials
of the constituent Convolutional encoder
have a common factor between them. It is
also common practice to choose identical
component encoders.
The interleaver can be chosen pseudo-
randomly to obtain good performance. It
follows a pseudo-random rule to reorder
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 the bits. Hence Turbo Codes appear ran ran-
dom to the channel, yet have enough
structure so that decoding can be
physically realized. During the decoding
process if the inputs are correlated then the
performance of the decoder deteriorates.
The interleaver decor relates them to give a
good performance. Hence interleaver design
is an important aspect of Turbo codes. The
performance of Turbo Codes improves
when the interleaver length is increased,
but at the expense of greater delay.ay. This is
because for the large block size one has to
wait to get all the bits of the block and then
do the interleaving.
Figure 4:Rate
:Rate 1/3 Turbo Code wit 5/7 component codes
4. simulation and result
In order to evaluate the
he performance of the
different coding techniques over the AWGN
channel, the BER and SNR are considered as the
key performance metrics used in this study.
Matlab simulator shown in Figure.5 and Figure
Figure.6
were designed and built to investigate the
performance of the different coding techniques
scenarios considered in this paper.
The simulation procedure could be summarized
using the following points:
1- To investigate on the performance of the turbo
code, the set up circuit shown in figure.5 is used.
The signal from work station simulate the burst
error that introduced by the communication
ommunication
channel.
ISBN: 978-0-9891305-4-7 2014 SDIWC
2- To investigate on the performance of the
Convolutional code with soft and hard decision ,
the set up circuit shown in figure.6 is used.
Convolutional
nal coder rate with
specification(171,133,120,153) with number of
memories =6 and Viterbi decoding.
3- Figure.7 shows the performance of the
Convolutional codes with soft and hard decision.
4- Figure.8 shows the performance of the Turbo
code verses the Convolutional code with respect to
the un coded system.
Figure5:: The simulation model
Figure6:: Convolutional code with Hard/Soft decision over
AWGN Channel
5. Conclusion
Figure.7 shows the Convolutional coding
using Viterbi decoder soft decision provides
coding gain of 2 dB in comparison to Viterbi
decoder hard decision.
Figure.8 shows the superior performance of
the coded system with respect to the un coded
system which is obvious and clear. However, the
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 performance of the turbo code is far better than the
Convolutional code.
Hence, all of the goals as set forth in this
paper have been achieved. The verifications have
been met as shown in figure[7,8], and the
requirements have been completed. REFERENCES

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[2] Theodore S. Rappaport. Wireless Communications

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[4] Frenger, P., P. Orten, and T. Ottosson, "Convolution

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Figure7 Viterbi hard and soft decision over AWGN channel [6] S. Benedetto and G. Montorsi, Unveiling turbo-codes:
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[7] Gao Yingzi, M.Reza Soleymai and U.Vilaipornsawai,

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-2
1
0

-3
1
0 0 0. 1 1. 2 2. 3
5 5 in dB
SNR 5
Figure(8): The simulation results

ISBN: 978-0-9891305-4-7 2014 SDIWC 11