IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. COM-32, NO.

3 , MARCH 1984 315

b = --1 ( p l
2
+ l2) a 2 = - $ (pl +9 3 034)
1.0-
-
n
~ = -1
( p 1 3 + $ p 1 2 + $ p ~ 15
z
0 . 24
U
n becomes degradation the Therefore,
2
e -
0.5.
D = - l o log [ I - + (pl + l ) e-z + L ( p l +
2 8
+)3F2
-
- A (pl + p12 + $pl + ~ 1 ~ 4 1 . 05)
Using the series expansion for the logarithm,we get
-
D = 10 (loge)[+(pl + +I-.’
- $ ( p l + +>2(pl -;)F2
5 IO
-
Fig. 6 .
SYMBOL ASYMMETRY

Degradationcausedbysymbolasymmetryfor
(%)

PE =
4 ( p 1 3 + $p12
+ 21 +$pl + ?lE41 (B6)
and p = 1/2.
to fourth order in E. This has to be expressed in terms of po
rather than p l . From (3) and(B5),
APPENDIX A
-
Expand p1 = po[ 1 + l2( p o + +)e2 + higherorderterms].(B7)
f(e)= 4 erfc1-4 =-
J;; /-J z c z e-x2 dx Substitution of (B7)into
small quantities.
(B6) yields(12)tofourthorderin

aylor in a E = 0: REFERENCES

f(E)=f(0)+fdE
df / L O
+p?l de2 E =
+...
~
(A21
[ 11 E. Y. Ho and Y. S. Yeh, “A new approach for evaluating the error
probability in the presence of intersymbol interference and additive
Gaussian noise”. Bell Syst. Tech. J.. vol. 49. p. 2249, 1970.
and use Liebnitz’s rule for differentiating an integral: [2] 0. ShimboandM.Celebiler.“Theprobability of error due to
intersymbol interference and Gaussian noise in digital communica-
b(x) db systems.”
tion lEEECommun.
Trans.
Technol.. COM-19.
vol. p.
y ( x ,z ) dz =
Ia(x)
- dz
dx
+ .v(x, b ( x ) ) -
dx
113,1971.
[3] J . Spilker, Diyiral Communicarion b.v Satellire. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977.
141 M . Abramowitzand I . A . S t e p ” , Hondbook of.Mathemutical
Functions with Formulas. Graphs. and Tables. Washington.DC:
Nat. Bur. Stand., 1964, p. 932, no. 76.2.17.
[51 M . K. Simon, K. Tu. and B.H.Batson.“Effects of dataasym-
toobtain ( 5 ) . Thisresultisequivalent tothemoregeneral metry on shuttleKu-bandcommunications link performance.”
expansion of f ( e ) in terms of the Hermite polynomials in p1 IEEE Trans. Commun.. vol. COM-26, pp. 1639-1651. Nov. 1978.
) a well-behaved function for E < 1, its Taylor
’[31 . Since f ( ~ is
series expansion converges absolutely.
APPENDIXB
To derive (1 2), average (5) term by term, retaining only the
even powers of E :
.-
High-Rate Punctured Convolutional Codes for Soft Decision
Viterbi Decoding

YUTAKA YASUDA, KANSHIRO KASHIKI. AND YASUO HIRATA

We want to express this as

PE = 4 erfc 4 p 1 ( 1 - a -
e2
-
- be22
-
- ce4) (B2)
Absrruct-The high-rate punctured codes of rates 2/3 through 13/14
are derived from rate 1/2 specific convolutional codes with maximal
where a , b , and c are constants to be determined. The quantity free distance. Coding gains of derived codes are compared based on
inparenthesesisthemostgeneralfourth-orderexpression, their bit error rate
performances under
soft decision Viterbi
involving only the even-order moments of E, that can be writ- decoding.
ten for the factor multiplying p l . Using ( 5 ) again to expand
(B2), we obtain I. INTRODUCTION
It is known that Viterbi decoding for high-rate codes can
besignificantlysimplifiedbyemploying“punctured”con-

+ +(PI + +)a2€72]. (B3) Paper

approvedbythe
Editor
for
Communication
Theory of the
IEEE Communications Society for publication without oral presenta-
Equating ( B I ) and (B3) yields tion. Manuscript received January 3, 1983; revised August 10, 1983.
The authors are with KDD Research and Development Laboratories,
a =‘(pl
2
+. ’2) Tokyo, 153, Japan.

0090-6778/84/0300-03 15$01 .OO O 1984 IEEE

 volutional codes, which are obtained by periodically deleting
a part of the bits of low-rate convolutional code [ 11 - [ 3 ] . I.apq-zGT-fJ ortglnal
coded

)r--
Cain et al. [ 2 ] clarifiedthecodestructureanddecoding for Origlnol code data
procedure of the punctured code, and derived the best punc-
tured‘codesofrates2/3and3/4fromamong all possible (orlgmal
combinations of code generators. Coded Data b1.z bz.2 ---- b1.z b,+I,z - - -
Punctured coding technique is very, attractive not only for
simplifying the Viterbi decoder for high-rate codes but also
forimplementing rateselectable
a convolutionalencoder/
Viterbidecoder.Forthelatterpurpose,it is essential t o ( 2 x L )I * [ transmlrtlng
0I :: deletlng
employ various rate punctured codes derived from the same u ( m blts 1

)I
originalcode.Inthiscorrespondence,high-ratepunctured Punctured i3.1 X - - - - b1,1 b1tl.1 - - -
codesofrate ( n - l ) / n ( n = 3 , 4 , *-, 14)arederivedfrom coded Data bt,z bz,z - - - - X b1tt.z - - -
rate
1/2
specific
convolutional codes with
maximal free
’ X ---deleted bits I
distance[4J,andthecodinggainsarecomparedbasedon
theirbiterrorrateperformanceundersoftdecisionViterbi Fig. 1. Basic procedure of punctured codingfrom rate 1 / 2 convolu-
decoding. tional code.

11.PUNCTURED,CODES DERIVEDFROM RATE 1/2 CODES thattheperformances of therates2/3and3/4punctured

Fig. 1 shows basic procedure for constructing a high rate codes derived from the specific 1/2 code chosen here are very
punctured code from a rate 1/2 code. Specific m bits among I close to those of thebestcodeswhichhavebeensearched
blocks (21 bits)oforiginalcodesequenceareperiodically among all possible punctured code generators.
deletedaccording tothemapwhichindicatesdeletingbit
positions. When m is chosen to be 1 - 1, a punctured code of 111. CODINGGAIN OF PUNCTUREDCODES
rate ( n - l ) / n is obtained. Viterbi decoding is performed for The BER performance has been calculated for each punc-
such a punctured code in the same manner as for the original tured code listed in Table I, assuming eight-level soft decision
1/2 code after inserting the dummy bits (erasures) into posi- Viterbidecoding.ForBERcalculationusing ( l ) , several
tions where coded bits are deleted. In this case, the Viterbi’s Ck’S ( k = d , d -I- 1, .-) have been computed for each punc-
upperbound[SIofthebiterrorprobability ( P B ) isgiven tured code. In addition, Pk’s havebeencalculatedprecisely
by for the eight-level soft decision case [ 3 ] , [ 7 ] (see the Appen-
m dix).Fig.2showstheBERversus Eb/No(Eb: energyper
information bit, No : one-sided noise power density) perform-
ance for 718 punctured codes with v = 2, 3, ..., 8. The coding
gain, which is defined as the difference of the required Eb/No
i n . the uncoiied and coded systems for obtaining the specific
BERunderthesameinformationbitrate,iscompared in
Fig.for
3 all codesat
theBERpoint
of
where
the
where d is the minimum free distance of the punctured code, abscissaisthebandwidthexpansionrate(reciprocal of the
C k is the total number of error bits produced by all incorrect coding rate) in decibels.
pathswithdistance k whichdivergefromthecorrectpath The following can be pointed out from Fig.3.
at each of 1 blocks of the original code, andP k is the probabil- 1 ) For thesameratepuncturedcodes,thecodinggain
itythatonesuch-incorrectpath is selectedin theViterbi increases by 0.2-0.5 dB according t o t h e increase of the con-
decoding process. Ck is the normalized number of C k per each straint length v b y 1.
information.bit. Since the upper bound calculated by (1) is 2) Although the coding gain of punctured codes decreases
verytightforlargesignal-to-noiseratio,thebiterrorrate as thecodingratebecomeshigher,thecodinggain is still
(BER) performance of the punctured codes can be theoreti- higheven forthehigh-ratepuncturedcodes.Forexample,
cally evaluated and compared by using this equation. the rate of 13/14 code provides a coding gain of larger than 3
.The distance property of the punctured code largely dif- dB if v is equal to 6 or longer.
fers depending on the deleting bit positions, even if the orig-
inal code is the same. Therefore, the map of deleting bits should IV. CONCLUSION
be determined so that the derived puactured code gives the High-rate punctured codes have been derived from rate 1/2
bestBERperformanceunderthe given condition.Forthis specific convolutional codes, and the coding gains have been
purpose, the map which provides maximum d and minimum comparedbycalculatingtheirbiterrorrateperformance
ck’s ( k = d , d -k 1, *-) has been searched among all possible under the eight-level soft decision Viterbi decoding. Obtained
deleting bit patterns for various rate punctured codes derived results indicate that the punctured codes derived from the rate
from the same original code. 1/2 fixed codes provide good BER performance even for the
Table I shows the optimum map of deleting bits for rate high-rate codes such as of rate 13/14.
( n - l)/n punctured codes ( n = 3 , 4 , 14) derived from the
.e*, Punctured codes are useful for realizing the Viterbi decoder
rate 1/2 codes with maximal free distance [4] for constraint not only for high-rate codes such ofasrate 7/8 or more, but also
length v = 2 , 3 , .-, 8. (Constraint length is expressed according with variable-rate capability [ 81 . In such practical applications
to Forney’s definition [6] .) The code generators for original of puncturedcodes,however,itshouldbenotedthatthe
1/2codesareshown in TableIbyoctalnotation.Table I1 truncation path length in the Viterbi decoder must be longer
shows d , Cd (Ck for k = d ) , and Cd for each punctured code than that required for the original low-rate code, in order to
obtained by Table I, together with those for original 1/2 codes. make the BER degradation due to path truncation negligible
In Table 111, the minimum distance of rates 2/3 and 3/4 [ 91. For instance, the required truncation path length becomes
puncturedcodes ( d ) of v = 2, 3, ...I, 8 is compared to that about 60, 100, and 160 for rates 3/4,7/8,and 13/14 punctured
of the best punctured codes ( d B ) derived by Cain e t a l . [ 2 ] . codes with constraint length v = 6, respectively [8], although
Table 111 indicates that d equals d B or d~ - 1, which means 40 bits are enough for the rate 1/2 original code.
3EE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. COM-32, NO. 3, MARCH1984 317

TABLE I
M A P O F DELETING BITS FOR PUNCTURED CODES DERIVED
FROM 1/2 CODES WITH v = 2, ..., 8 (1: TRANSMITTING,
0: DELETING)

v: Constraint length defined by Forney [ 6 ] .

(-): Generator polynomial (octal notation)of original 1/2 code with
maximal free distance [4].

TABLE I1
d , cd. AND c d FOR PUNCTURED CODES LISTEDIN TABLE I

* : Codes which provide the best BER performance because Ck for

k = d + 1 , '.. is smallest, although cd is not minimum.
318 MARCH
TRANSACTIONS
COMMUNICATIONS,
3,
IEEE
ONNO.
COM-32,
VOL. 1984

TABLE I11 . (Prob.

density)
COMPARRSON O F FREE DISTANCE FOR RATES 213 AND Goussion
314 PUNCTURED CODES

received
(threshold value1 bo-l--- bf,, b Q b+-q---

(decisionregionlo ---- ++, 4 ---- 1

(decision dota) YO 1 ---- (YQ,,I Y % ( ---- 1 Y3

Fig. 4 . Q-level soft decision over Gaussian noise channel.

APPENDIX

CALCULATION O F P k
dg: Free distance of best punctured codes [ 21.
d : Free distance of punctured codes listed in Table I1
In general, the Q-level soft decision channel can be regarded
as thebinaryinputQ-aryoutputsymmetricmemoryless
channel where input symbol x = 0 or 1 and output symbol
y = y l , y z , -., Y Q . Then,assume P(i) to be the channel
transition probability that symbol yi is received when symbol
x = 1 is transmitted. In the transmission channel where white
Gaussiannoise is added, P(i) can be uniquely calculated by
using the error function if EJNo (symbol energy versus one-
sided noise power density ratio) and the soft decision thresh-
olds {bi} (i = 1, 2 , --,Q - 1) are determined. (See'Fig.4.)
In such a channel model, Pk in ( l a ) can be calculated by the
followingequationswhere it is assumedthatthesymbol
metric for Viterbi decoding takes integers0, 1, .*.,Q - 1 [ 71 .
-1

where C in (A-2) means the summation for all combinations

of integers {li} which satisfy the following equations.

- Eb/~otdBl

Fig. 2 . BER performance of rate 7/8 puncturedcodesderivedfrom

1/2 codes with u = 2 , ..., 8. (A-3)

In this correspondence, Pk has been cal_culated by setting

uanawlarn
Fig. 3. Comparisonofcoding
punctured codes derived from 112 codes with u = 2, ..., 8.
Q 8 and soft decision threshold spacing = 0 . 6 m 131.
Expansion Rate ( d B )
gains at BER = 10-6 for ( n - l)/n
REFERENCES
B. D. Trumpis and P. L. McAdam. "Performance of convolutional
codes on burst noise channels." in Proc. Nar. Telecommun. Conf..
Los Angeles, CA. Dec. 1977,pp. 36:3-I-36:3-14.
J . B. Cain, G . C.Clark, J r . . and J . M.Geist."Puncturedcon-
volutional codes of rate ( n - I ) / n and simplified maximum like-
lihooddecoding." IEEETrans.Inform.Theory, vol. IT-25, pp.
97-100. Jan. 1979.
Y . Yasuda. Y. Hiram. and A. Ogawa. "Optimum soft decision for
Viterbi decoding," in Proc. 5th Inr. Conf. Digiral Sarellire Com-
m u n . . Genoa. Italy. Mar. 1981,pp. 251-258.
K . J . Larsen."Shortconvolutionalcodeswithmaximalfreedis-
tance for rates I/?. 113 and 114." IEEE Truns. Inform. Theor-v. vol.
IT-19,pp. 371-372. May 1973.
A . J . Viterbi. "Convolutional codes and their performance in com-
munication systems," IEEE Trans: Commun. Technol.;vol. COM-
19. pp. 751-772. Oct. 1971.
 [6] G. D. Forney.Jr..“Convolutionalcodes I: Algebraicstructure.“
IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. IT-16, pp. 720-738, Nov. 1970. 0 V U ’ s / s e cd u r i n gs i l e n c e
[7] Y. Yasuda, Y. Hirata. and A. Ogawa, “Bit error rate performance
of soft decision Viterbi decoding,” Truns. IECE Japan, vol. E-64,
pp. 700-707,Nov.1981.
[SI Y. Yasuda, Y. Hirata, K. Nakamura.and S . Otani,“Development
ofvariable-rateViterbidecoder.and its performancecharacteris-
tics,“ i n Proc. 6th Int. Conf. Digital Satellite Commun., Phoenix, N ‘ o f f hook’ v o i c es u b s c r l b e r s
AZ, Sept. 1983. pp. XII-24-XII-31. (9.6kb/sec)
[9] G . C.Clark, J r . and J . B . Cain. Error-CorrectionCoding for Mean i d l e a u r a t i o n = 1.832 sec.
Digital Communications. NewYork: Plenum, pp. 262-263.1981. Mean t a l k s p u r t d u r a t i o n = 1.366 s e t .

Speech A c t l v l t y F r a c t i o n (SAF)

= 1.366 = ,432
1.366+1. do2

P = H/M x SAF

Delay Versus TASI Advantage in a Packet Voice Multiplexer

L
N. JANAKIRAMAN, B. PAGUREK, A N D J. E. NEILSON (r

t
/ / / P = .755 (N-14)
Absrmcr-In thiscorrespondence we complement, by means Of an b
analyticalmodel,anearliersimulationstudyontradeoffbetween
delay and TASI advantage in a packetized speech multiplexer.
z
; c = ,701 (N-13)
L.
I. INTRODUCTION
In two previous papers [ 2 ] , [3] the authors addressed the P = .647 (N=12),
problem of multiplexingvoiceand/ordataterminals. As an
extension of this, we provide here the delay characteristics of
the packet voice multiplexer model and a n analytical verifica-
tion of the simulation study reported by Weinstein and Hof-
stetter [41 on tradeoff between delay and TASI advantage. I I I 1
60 80 1m 120 140
BUFFER S I Z E CK1
11. T H E PACKET VOICE MULTIPLEXER Fig. 1. Mean VU queueing delays versus buffer size in VU’s in a packet
For assumptions, definitions, and model development the voicemultiplexer.Notethattheprob. of VU loss is a variable.
reader is referred to the earlier publications [ 2 1 , [ 3 ] . It will,
however, be useful to restate here that due to the discrete time
nature of the queueing model used in this study, we assume ferential delays between talkspurts that affect speech quality.
that the talkspurt and silence durations are distributed accord- However, the talkspurt delays are more difficult to determine
ing toageometricdistributionratherthananexponential andtheresults given herearemeanttoprovidesomefirst-
one as observed by Brady [ 1 ] and used in the simulation study order guidelines on delay performance.
referred to above. Having said this, we proceed directly to dis-
cuss the packet voice multiplexer performance. B. Delay Versus TASI Advantage
A . Delay Characteristics Here we complement the simulation study due to Weinstein
and Hofstetter [ 4 ] by means of our analytical tool primarily
Fig. 1 portrays the variation of mean queueing delays with t o verify their main conclusion, namely, thatif one can tolerate
respect to buffer size, for a system with eight servers, each one moderate delays for the VU’s, then improvements in TASI ad-
operating at 1/8 of the total transmission capacity. The param- vantageforthepacketizedsystem over conventionalcircuit
eters of the system are as shown in the figure. For the multi- switchedTASIaresignificant,particularlyforcaseswherea
plexer shown in Fig. 1, the talkspurt and idle time statistics are small number of users are multiplexed.
assumed t o be nonvarying with time and identical for all the Inourcomparison,wehave used exactlythesamemean
talkers. The utilization factor p , therefore, is varied by chang- talkspurtandsilencedurations,delaycriteriaand VU loss,
ing the number of off-hook callers. etc., as Weinstein. However, we have used an equivalent multi-
In dealing with voice unit (VU) delay, one should be aware server queueing model rather than the single server one used in
of its limitations. At the receiving end, talkspurts are the en- the simulation. This difference in the two models may be seen
tities that are delivered to the subscriber and it is the peak dif- reflected in Figs. 2 and 3, which show the curves relating TASI
advantage and delay for both an average delay criterion and a
Paper approved by the Editor for Computer Communications of the maximumdelaycriterion.Althoughourresultsdo have the
IEEE Communications Society for publication without oral presenta- samebehavior as thoseduetothesimulation,theyshowa
tion. Manuscript received March 31, 1981; revised December 22, 1982. somewhat higher TASI advantage for the same number of “cir-
N. Janakiraman is withSatelliteBusinessSystems,McLean, VA
22102. cuits” M and delay. This difference may be given an intuitive
B. Pagurek is with the Department of Systems and Computer Engi- explanation as follows. For the same utilization, a multiserver
neering, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ont.. Canada K1S 5B6. systemhassomewhatsmallerqueueingtimethanits single
J. E. Neilson is with the School of Computer Science, Carleton Uni- server counterpart. In other words, a multiserver system should
versity, Ottawa, Ont., Canada K1S 5B6. operateatahigherutilization to experience the same mean

0090-6778/84/0300-03 19$01.OO 0 1984 IEEE

.I . . ’