2015 IEEE Power, Communication and Information Technology Conference (PCITC)
Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, India.
Improved Serially Concatenated Convolution
Turbo Code (SCCTC) using Chicken Swarm
Optimization
Subhabrata Banerjee
Department of Electronics & Communication
Engineering
Future Institute of Engineering & Management
Kolkata, India
subhabrata2010@gmail.com
Abstract–Error-control coding pattern is used in modern
communication system to uplift the immunity of noisy
communication channel by adding the redundant bits.
Suitable tuning of internal parameters of constituent codes
leads to considerable enhancement in system performance of
Turbo code under AWGN channel condition. In this paper, an
optimized Serially Concatenated Convolution Turbo Code
(SCCTC) has been suggested to improve BER performance
especially at higher values of SNR using Chicken Swarm
Optimization (CSO) algorithm. Serially Concatenated
Recursive Systematic Convolutional (SCRSC) encoder with
different poly2trellis has been used to establish the
improvement in BER characteristics mainly in high SNR
regions. Moreover, the variation of BER values with the block
lengths of the code has also been witnessed. Finally, the BER
performance of the proposed SCCTC has been compared with
conventional as well as serially concatenated turbo BCH-RSC
code.
Keywords-BER, Chicken Swarm Optimization, De-interleaver,
Interleaver, Poly2trellis, Serially Concatenated Convolution
Turbo Code.
I. INTRODUCTION
The main challenge of modern communication systems had
been to maintain the fidelity of the signal under the worst
channel condition. The channel coding method is one of the
key practices which adds redundancy to overcome channel
hazards. It also detects and corrects errors through proper
design of the communication receiver. To improve the
system performance, numerous bio-inspired optimization
algorithm have been proposed to reform the system in
optimum mode by adjusting the different system
parameters in an iterative manner.
Concatenated interleaved codes signify a better asymptotic
slope in coding theory for their amazing performance. To
achieve this, a new scheme [2] has been proposed by
S.Benedetto and G.Montorsi in 1996, which consisted of
978-1-4799-7455-9/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Sudipta Chattopadhyay
Department of Electronics &
Telecommunication Engineering
Jadavpur University
Kolkata, India
sudiptachat@yahoo.com
two constituent interleaved codes of length N. The average
performance in terms of analytical bound has been
evaluated in this paper. The performance of this work has
been updated in [3] by using a low-complexity iterative
decoding algorithm in 1998.
An irregular Turbo code comprising of serial combination
of Repetition Block Code (RBC) and turbo RSC code has
been proposed in 2001 [5]. Turbo codes with unequal error
protection have been presented in this paper.
On the same year, a serial concatenation of high rate
Rectangular Parity Check Code (RPCC) with Turbo RSC
code [6, 7] has been projected to improve the performance
of the Turbo code by reducing the decoding complexity.
Further improvement in the BER performance of the
SCCTC has been brought in [8]. In this paper, a new
algorithm has been proposed for detailed computation of
the internal parameters, especially, the free distance d free ,
which dominates the code performance at a very high
signal to noise ratio by analytical estimation of “error floor”
region.
In order to improve the BER performance both in
“waterfall” and “error-floor” region, a new class of Serially
Concatenated Convolution Code (SCCC) with punctured
inner encoder has been suggested in [9]. In this regard, a
rate compatible serially concatenated code with inner
recursive convolution code and outer extended BCH code
has been proposed in [11].
To upgrade the analytical asymptote in overall region
within reasonable number of decoding iteration, a novel
serial combination of turbo recursive systematic
convolution code and turbo Bose Ray Chaudhuri
Hocquenghem (BCH) codes [12] linked by pseudo random
interleaver has been proposed by Sina,Tadeusz and Mehran
in 2009.
 2015 IEEE Power, Communication and Information Technology Conference (PCITC)
Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, India.

But till now improvement in Minimum Hamming Distance The decoding principle of SCCTC using Log-Map[10]
(MHD) has not been achieved without considering algorithm has been shown in Fig. 1b, where extrinsic LLR
artificially limiting the realizable MHD. To attain this, R. λ (ui;O) has been evaluated from inner SISO decoder by
G. Maunder and L. Hanzo proposed an improved comparing the output of SISO decoder with the associated
interleaver [13] using Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) in transmitted code symbol Y9 passing through LLRIN
2011. The proposed structure consisted of an outer code i.e. memory. From outer SISO decoder extrinsic LLR λ (co;O)
outer code Fixed Length Code (FLC) and inner code i.e.
has been computed by using de-interleaved a priori LLRs
Unity Rate Code (URC).
i.e. λ (co;I). This iterative process has been clogged using
Motivated by above research trends and challenges, an
optimized Serially Concatenated Convolution Turbo Code some soft or hard decoding [4] stopping criteria by proper
(SCCTC) has been proposed in this paper. The main concatenation of both turbo decoders.
objective behind this work has been to mend the BER
performance of the system over the existing ones. For this
purpose, component codes with different poly2trellis have
been considered. Improvement in the BER performance has
been achieved by using a recent intelligent computation
technique called Chicken Swarm Optimization (CSO)
algorithm [l4].
The paper is organized in the following manner: section II
defines the system model comprising of SCCTC encoder
and decoder; section III describes the problem formulation;
development of the projected algorithm based on
formulated problem is presented in section IV; simulation
results and its critical analysis are summarized in section V;
section VI includes the concluding remarks along with
some scope for future work related to this paper.

II. SYSTEM MODEL

Conventional turbo encoder is constructed by using two
Recursive Systematic Convolution (RSC) encoders Fig.1b. Block diagram of Serially Concatenated Convolution Turbo
decoder.
separated by pseudo random interleaver; whereas, the
conventional turbo decoder is organized by two identical
component decoders. But to improve BER performance
especially in high SNR region, Serially Concatenated III. PROBLEM FORMULATION
Convolution Turbo Code (SCCTC) has been considered, For an (n, m) systematic block code, the Input Output
created by two non-identical RSC encoders called outer Weight Enumerating Function (IOWEF) is given by:
coder (co) with rate (n, N) and inner coder (ci) with rate n m
(K, m) separated by a interleaver of length K. Fig. 1a shows X (W , H )Δ∑∑ X w,hW w H h
the general structure of Serially Concatenated Convolution w=0 h =0
Turbo Code (SCCTC) encoder with input bit D1.The output
n

∑W
bit consists of parity bits Y6,Y7,Y8 and finally Y9, the output w
= X ( w, H ) (1)
of the multiplexer. w=0

Where X w ,h denotes number of code words with weight

‘h’ generated by information with weight ‘w’.
Now from (1) the Conditional Weight Enumerating
Function (CWEF) has been evaluated as

Fig.1a. Block diagram of Serially Concatenated Convolution Turbo

encoder.
 2015 IEEE Power, Communication and Information Technology Conference (PCITC)
Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, India.

1 δw III. PROPOSED ALGORITHM

X ( w, H ) = X (W , Z ) (2) The BER performance of turbo code may be affected by
w! δW w
different arrangement of component code as well as
The above equation exist only for W=0. different internal parameters like block size, interleaver
design, and weight spectrum and code rate. To improve
The upper bound to the bit error probability of SCBC code
BER performance, the SCCTC has been optimized using a
has been calculated [12] from the knowledge of
newly developed bio-inspired Chicken Swarm
Conditional Weight Enumerating Function (CWEF) and
Optimization (CSO) algorithm proposed by Xianbing
given by following equation:
Meng, Yu Liu, Xiaozhi Gao and Hengzhen Zhang in 2014
n
W [14]. The methodology for generation of optimized SCCTC
Pb ( e ) ≤ ∑
w =1 n
X ( w, H ) (3)
using Chicken Swarm Optimization (CSO) algorithm has
Eb
been described here. The pseudo codes corresponding to
− Rc
N0
The above equation is valid for H is equal to e this proposed algorithm has been designated below:

Now, the total CWEF of SCBC has been evaluated from Input: BER of the Serially Concatenated Convolution
the knowledge of the CWEFs of two CCs which are Turbo code for different poly2trellis that needs to be
controlled.
A Co ( w, a ) and A Ci (a, H ). Using a uniform interleaver,
Output: Optimized h, n, Rc used as a parameter in
a code word of weight ‘a’, at the output of outer encoder
objective function for better system response by
⎛K ⎞ improving BER performance.
has been transformed into distinct ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟ permutations
⎝a ⎠ begin
which directly fed to the inner encoder. So the number
X w,h of the SCBC with input and output weight ‘w’ and Objective Function
‘h’ respectively is given by
f = cos(c1 * h) + cos(c2 * n) + sin(c3 * Rc )
CO Ci
A ×A
X w,h = ∑
w,a a ,h Initialize values of (Number of population,
(4)
⎛K⎞ Percentage population of hen, mother and rooster
⎜⎜ ⎟⎟ and number of iteration)
⎝a ⎠ Initialize values of c1 , c 2 and c3
Finally, the upper bound to the bit error probability of
Generate initial population of n sets of ( h, n, Rc )
SCCTC has been given by:
values
m n
E while (maximum generations not reached)
w
Pb ( e ) ≤ 0 .5∑ ∑ Aw , h erfc ( hR c b if (G (time step) ==0)
h =1 w =1 n N0 (5)
Rank the chicken fitness value and
establish hierarchal order in swarm and
Equation (5) represents the final approximated system
divide them different group
function. Where Rc is the total code rate and is given by
Rc=R1*R2. R1 and R2 are the code rate of outer and inner end
convolution encoder respectively. for N no of solution
Now, as the BER performance of turbo code may be if j= = rooster or hen or chick
influenced by different parameters of component code like
update the solution ( h, n, Rc )
interleaver size, minimum weight of the output code word,
code rate and weight spectrum. So a fitness function has end
been recommended by choosing the parameters form
Evaluate value of fitness for each set
(5).The fitness function can be defined as
f = cos(c1 * h) + cos(c2 * n) + sin(c3 * Rc ) (6) if fitness(new ( h, n, Rc )) >

Where the coefficients c1 , c 2 and c3 are the scaling end

fitness (old ( h, n, Rc ))
factors.
 2015 IEEE Power, Communication and Information Technology Conference (PCITC)
Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, India.

From above table, the optimum values of c1 , c 2 and c3 are

Replace old ( h, n, Rc ) by the new found to be c1 =10; c 2 =1; c3 =10 for which functional
end value becomes optimum. In this respect, the BER
performance of the CSO optimized SCCTC for different
end
combination of c1 , c 2 and c3 has been shown in Fig. 2.
Post process results and visualization
This figure indicates how greatly the BER value depends
end on the selection of these parameters.

V. SIMULATION RESULTS
Simulation results have been presented in this section.
Simulation has been carried out using MATLAB 2014b.
During simulation, different parameters related to chicken-
swarm algorithm and Turbo code, have been set according
to Table1 and Table 2 respectively.

TABLE1. SETTING OF PARAMETERS OF CHICKEN SWARM

OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM
Parameter Value
No. of iterations 100
Population size 100
Population size of hens in percentage 0.6
Population size of mother hen in percentage 0.1
Fig. 2. Comparison of BER performance of the CSO optimized SCCTC
Population size of rooster in percentage 0.2 for different combination of c1, c2 and c3

TABLE2. SETTING OF PARAMETERS BASED ON TURBO CODE Now from the above figure this can be concluded easily
Parameter Value
that for the combination of c1 =10; c 2 =1; c3 =10, the BER
Constraint Length 5,6,7,8
performance of the CSO optimized SCCTC establishes its
Code Rate Variable between 0.2 and
supremacy over the others. So, these values have been
0.64
maintained throughout our work.
Type of Interleaver Random
Block length 128,256,512,1024
The efficacy of the proposed technique has been evaluated
Channel AWGN in terms of the BER performance of the optimized SCCTC
The values of c1 , c 2 and c3 as mentioned in (5) have been as shown in Fig. 3 for different values of Poly2 trellis.
set according to Table3 as shown below:
TABLE3. SETTING OF PARAMETERS c1 , c 2 AND c3
Parameters f
c1 c2 c3
10 1 10 -2.9976
10 10 10 -2.9973
1 10 10 -2.9948
Value 10 10 1 -1.8004
10 1 100 -2.9770
100 1 10 -2.9964
1 100 10 -2.9955
1 10 100 -2.9916
100 10 1 -1.8039
10 100 1 -1.7912
100 10 100 -2.9975 (a) Poly2trellis ( 63/57;13/11)
 2015 IEEE Power, Communication and Information Technology Conference (PCITC)
Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, India.

corresponding values are obtained as 3.138e-08 and 2.807e-

08 using serially concatenated convolution code with block
length 1024 and BCH-RSC turbo code considering the
poly2trellis (63/57; 23/35) respectively.

(a) Poly2trellis (63/57; 37/21)

Fig. 4. Comparison of BER performance of the CSO optimized serial

concatenated RSC and BCH-RSC Turbo code for
poly2trellis (63/57;23/35).

The critical investigation of the above observations has

been summarized in Table 4(a) to 4(d) for different values
of Poly2trellis.

TABLE 4(a). BER VALUES FOR POLY2TRELLIS (63/57; 13/11)

Serially Concatenated Conventional
Turbo Code (SCCTC)

(b) Poly2trellis (63/57;23/35) Block

128 256 512 1024
Optimiz Turbo
Length ed by BCH-
CSO RSC
SNR(dB)

1 1.864 9.32 4.66 2.33 7.533 1.874

e-03 e-04 e-04 e-04 e-06 e-04
2 1.439 7.196 3.598 1.799 6.39 3.333
e-04 e-05 e-05 e-05 e-11 e-06
3 3.179 1.59 7.948 3.974 4.284 6.811
e-06 e-06 e-07 e-07 e-19 e-09

TABLE 4(b). BER VALUES FOR POLY2TRELLIS(63/57; 37/21)

Serially Concatenated Conventional
Turbo Code (SCCTC)
(c) Poly2trellis (63/57;7/5)
Block 128 256 512 1024 Optimi Turbo
Fig. 3. Comparison of BER performance of optimized,conventional RSC Length zed by BCH-
and BCH-RSC Turbo code CSO RSC
SNR(dB)
From above figures it is evident that optimized SCCTC 1 7.007 3.503 1.752 8.758 7.533 9.886
exhibits better BER performance than conventional RSC e-04 e-04 e-04 e-05 e-06 e-05
turbo code. In other words, the optimized SCCTC can 2 5.379 2.69 1.345 6.724 6.39 3.65
preserve its superiority in BER performance at moderate e-06 e-06 e-06 e-07 e-11 e-07
and high value of SNR by using different poly2trellis. This 3 2.780 1.390 6.950 3.475 4.284 5.667
fact has been corroborated by Fig. 4, which shows that the e-09 e-09 e-10 e-10 e-19 e-11
BER value obtained with CSO optimized code is found to
be 6.39e-11 at an SNR value of 2 dB. Whereas, the
 2015 IEEE Power, Communication and Information Technology Conference (PCITC)
Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, India.

TABLE 4(c). BER VALUES FOR POLY2TRELLIS (63/57;23/35) VI.CONCLUSION

Serially Concatenated Conventional
Turbo Code (SCCTC) In this paper, an optimized SCCTC has been proposed for
Block Optimi Turbo
the improvement of BER, by improving minimum weight
128 256 512 1024
Length zed by BCH- of the output code word and increasing the length of
CSO RSC interleaver using a highly efficient bio-inspired Chicken
SNR
(dB) Swarm Optimization (CSO) algorithm. The remarkable
1 2.94 1.47 7.349 3.675 7.533 4.807 influence of the comprehensive search technique on the
e-04 e-04 e-05 e-05 e-06 e-05 performance of SCCTC is quite impressive. The high rating
2 2.511 1.255 6.276 3.138 6.390 2.807 of percentage enhancement in BER values of the proposed
e-07 e-07 e-08 e-08 e-11 e-08
code over the existing work establishes its supremacy over
3 3.492 1.746 8.729 4.365 4.284 2.085
the others. The work presented in this paper could further
e-12 e-12 e-13 e-13 e-19 e-13
be extended by proper adaptation of different parameters
associated with Chicken Swarm Optimization (CSO)
TABLE 4(d). BER VALUES FOR POLY2TRELLIS (63/57;7/5) algorithm or hybridization of this algorithm with others.
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