The equivalence of a systematic convolutional encoder as linear state-space control system is first realized and presented through an example. Then, utilizing this structure, a new optimal state-sequence estimator is derived, in the spirit of the Viterbi algorithm. Afterwords, a novel way to perform optimal decoding is achieved, named the Bowyer Decoder, which is a fully deterministic decoder in that the full FSM is known to the decoding algorithm.
Two-dimensional (2D) convolutional codes are a generalization of (1D) convolutional codes, which are very appropriate for transmission over an erasure channel. In this paper, we present a decoding algorithm for 2D convolutional codes over this kind of channel by reducing the decoding process to several decoding steps with 1D convolutional codes. Moreover, we provide constructions of 2D convolutional codes that are specially taylored to our decoding algorithm.
An efficient implementation of min-sum SC/list decoding of convolutional polar codes is proposed. The complexity of the proposed implementation of SC decoding is more than two times smaller than the straightforward implementation. Moreover, the proposed list decoding algorithm does not require to copy any LLRs during decoding.
Decoding of convolutional codes poses a significant challenge for coding theory. Classical methods, based on e.g. Viterbi decoding, suffer from being computationally expensive and are restricted therefore to codes of small complexity. Based on analogies with model predictive optimal control, we propose a new iterative method for convolutional decoding that is cheaper to implement than established algorithms, while still offering significant error correction capabilities. The algorithm is particularly well-suited for decoding special types of convolutional codes, such as e.g. cyclic convolution…
This paper studies the decoding capabilities of maximum distance profile (MDP) convolutional codes over the erasure channel and compares them with the decoding capabilities of MDS block codes over the same channel. The erasure channel involving large alphabets is an important practical channel model when studying packet transmissions over a network, e.g, the Internet.
In this paper, we employ the linear systems representation of a convolutional code to develop a decoding algorithm for convolutional codes over the erasure channel. We study the decoding problem using the state space description and this provides in a natural way additional information. With respect to previously known decoding algorithms, our new algorithm has the advantage that it is able to reduce the decoding delay as well as the computational effort in the erasure recovery process. We describe which properties a convolutional code should have in order to obtain a good decoding performance…
Matched decoding is a technique that enables the efficient maximum-likelihood sequence estimation of convolutionally encoded PAM-transmission over ISI-channels. Recently, we have shown that the super-trellis of encoder and channel can be described with significantly fewer states without loss in Euclidean distance, by introducing a non-linear representation of the trellis. This paper extends the matched decoding concept to punctured convolutional codes and introduces a time-variant, non-linear trellis description.
A Viterbi-like decoding algorithm is proposed in this paper for generalized convolutional network error correction coding. Different from classical Viterbi algorithm, our decoding algorithm is based on minimum error weight rather than the shortest Hamming distance between received and sent sequences. Network errors may disperse or neutralize due to network transmission and convolutional network coding. Therefore, classical decoding algorithm cannot be employed any more. Source decoding was proposed by multiplying the inverse of network transmission matrix, where the inverse is hard to compute.…
An iterative decoding algorithm for convolutional codes is presented. It successively processes $N$ consecutive blocks of the received word in order to decode the first block. A bound is presented showing which error configurations can be corrected. The algorithm can be efficiently used on a particular class of convolutional codes, known as doubly cyclic convolutional codes. Due to their highly algebraic structure those codes are well suited for the algorithm and the main step of the procedure can be carried out using Reed-Solomon decoding. Examples illustrate the decoding and a comparison wit…
We consider a windowed decoding scheme for LDPC convolutional codes that is based on the belief-propagation (BP) algorithm. We discuss the advantages of this decoding scheme and identify certain characteristics of LDPC convolutional code ensembles that exhibit good performance with the windowed decoder. We will consider the performance of these ensembles and codes over erasure channels with and without memory. We show that the structure of LDPC convolutional code ensembles is suitable to obtain performance close to the theoretical limits over the memoryless erasure channel, both for the BP dec…
In this paper, we revisit the forward, backward and bidirectional Bahl-Cocke-Jelinek-Raviv (BCJR) soft-input soft-output (SISO) maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) decoding process of rate-1 binary convolutional codes. From this we establish some interesting explicit relationships between encoding and decoding of rate-1 convolutional codes. We observe that the forward and backward BCJR SISO MAP decoders can be simply represented by their dual SISO channel encoders using shift registers in the complex number field. Similarly, the bidirectional MAP decoding can be implemented by linearly comb…
We propose a decoding algorithm for a class of convolutional codes called skew BCH convolutional codes. These are convolutional codes of designed Hamming distance endowed with a cyclic structure yielding a left ideal of a non-commutative ring (a quotient of a skew polynomial ring). In this setting, right and left division algorithms exist, so our algorithm follows the guidelines of the Sugiyama's procedure for finding the error locator and error evaluator polynomials for BCH block codes.
Despite the extreme error-correction performance, the amount of computation of sequential decoding of the polarization-adjusted convolutional (PAC) codes is random. In sequential decoding of convolutional codes, the computational cutoff rate denotes the region between rates whose average computational complexity of decoding is finite and those which is infinite. In this paper, by benefiting from the polarization and guessing techniques, we prove that the computational cutoff rate in sequential decoding of pre-transformed polar codes polarizes. The polarization of the computational cutoff rate …
In this work we develop the maximum likelihood detection (MLD) algorithm for noncoherent amplitude shift keying (NCASK) systems in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. The developed algorithm was used to investigate the performance of the NCASK system with convolutional coding and soft-decision Viterbi decoding. Tight and simple upper bounds have been derived to describe the system performance; simulation results have shown that the derived upper bounds are within 0.1 dB of the simulated points.
A latest coding scheme named polarization-adjusted convolutional (PAC) codes is shown to approach the dispersion bound for the code (128,64) under list decoding. However, to achieve the near-bound performance, the list size of list decoding needs to be excessively large, which leads to insufferable latency. In this paper, to improve the speed of list decoding, fast list decoders for PAC codes are proposed. We define four types of constituent nodes and provide fast list decoding algorithms for each of them. Simulation results present that fast list decoding with three types of constituent nodes…
We consider an \textit{Adaptive Random Convolutional Network Coding} (ARCNC) algorithm to address the issue of field size in random network coding for multicast, and study its memory and decoding delay performances through both analysis and numerical simulations. ARCNC operates as a convolutional code, with the coefficients of local encoding kernels chosen randomly over a small finite field. The cardinality of local encoding kernels increases with time until the global encoding kernel matrices at related sink nodes have full rank.ARCNC adapts to unknown network topologies without prior knowled…
In this paper we study the decoding capabilities of convolutional codes over the erasure channel. Of special interest will be maximum distance profile (MDP) convolutional codes. These are codes which have a maximum possible column distance increase. We show how this strong minimum distance condition of MDP convolutional codes help us to solve error situations that maximum distance separable (MDS) block codes fail to solve. Towards this goal, we define two subclasses of MDP codes: reverse-MDP convolutional codes and complete-MDP convolutional codes. Reverse-MDP codes have the capability to reco…
In diffusion based molecular communication, the intersymbol interference (ISI) is an important reason for system performance degradation, which is caused by the random movement, out-of-order arrival and indistinguishability of the moleclues. In this paper, a new metric called crossover distance is introduced to measure the distance between the received bit sequence and the probably tranmitted bit sequences. A new decoding scheme of conventional codes is proposed based on crossover distance, which can enhance the communication reliability significantly. The theoretic analysis indicates that the…
We consider the concatenation of a convolutional code (CC) with an optimized cyclic redundancy check (CRC) code as a promising paradigm for good short blocklength codes. The resulting CRC-aided convolutional code naturally permits the use of serial list Viterbi decoding (SLVD) to achieve maximum-likelihood decoding. The convolutional encoder of interest is of rate-$1/ω$ and the convolutional code is either zero-terminated (ZT) or tail-biting (TB). The resulting CRC-aided convolutional code is called a CRC-ZTCC or a CRC-TBCC. To design a good CRC-aided convolutional code, we propose the distanc…
We consider the decoding of convolutional codes using an error trellis constructed based on a submatrix of a given check matrix. In the proposed method, the syndrome-subsequence computed using the remaining submatrix is utilized as auxiliary information for decoding. Then the ML error path is correctly decoded using the degenerate error trellis. We also show that the decoding complexity of the proposed method is basically identical with that of the conventional one based on the original error trellis. Next, we apply the method to check matrices with monomial entries proposed by Tanner et al. B…
We present in this paper a special class of unit memory convolutional codes (UMCCs), called semi-random UMCCs (SRUMCCs), where the information block is first encoded by a short block code and then transmitted in a block Markov (random) superposition manner. We propose a successive cancellation list decoding algorithm, by which a list of candidate codewords are generated serially until one passes an empirical divergence test instead of the conventional cyclic redundancy check (CRC). The threshold for testing the correctness of candidate codewords can be learned off-line based on the statistical…
In this paper, we study sliding window decoding of braided convolutional codes (BCCs) in the context of a streaming application, where decoder error propagation can be a serious problem. A window extension algorithm and a resynchronization mechanism are introduced to mitigate the effect of error propagation. In addition, we introduce a soft bit-error-rate stopping rule to reduce computational complexity, and the tradeoff between performance and complexity is examined. Simulation results show that, using the proposed window extension algorithm and resynchronization mechanism, the error performa…
In a recent paper [1] an improved analysis concerning the analysis of List Decoding was presented. The event that the correct codeword is excluded from the list is central. For the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel an important quantity is the in [1] called effective Euclidean distance. This was earlier considered in [2] under the name Vector Euclidean Distance, where also a simple mathematical expression for this quantity was easily derived for any list size. In [1], a geometrical analysis gives this when the list size is 1, 2 or 3.
Performance and complexity of sequential decoding of polarization-adjusted convolutional (PAC) codes is studied. In particular, a performance and computational complexity comparison of PAC codes with 5G polar codes and convolutional codes is given. A method for bounding the complexity of sequential decoding of PAC codes is proposed.
This is the second part of a series of papers on a revisit to the bidirectional Bahl-Cocke-Jelinek-Raviv (BCJR) soft-in-soft-out (SISO) maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) decoding algorithm. Part I revisited the BCJR MAP decoding algorithm for rate-1 binary convolutional codes and proposed a linear complexity decoder using shift registers in the complex number field. Part II proposes a low complexity decoder for rate-1 non-binary convolutional codes that achieves the same error performance as the bidirectional BCJR SISO MAP decoding algorithm. We observe an explicit relationship between th…
Recently, rate-$1/ω$ zero-terminated and tail-biting convolutional codes (ZTCCs and TBCCs) with cyclic-redundancy-check (CRC)-aided list decoding have been shown to closely approach the random-coding union (RCU) bound for short blocklengths. This paper designs CRCs for rate-$(ω-1)/ω$ CCs with short blocklengths, considering both the ZT and TB cases. The CRC design seeks to optimize the frame error rate (FER) performance of the code resulting from the concatenation of the CRC and the CC. Utilization of the dual trellis proposed by Yamada \emph{et al.} lowers the complexity of CRC-aided serial l…
This paper is concerned with block Markov superposition transmission (BMST) of tail-biting convolutional code (TBCC). We propose a new decoding algorithm for BMST-TBCC, which integrates a serial list Viterbi algorithm (SLVA) with a soft check instead of conventional cyclic redundancy check (CRC). The basic idea is that, compared with an erroneous candidate codeword, the correct candidate codeword for the first sub-frame has less influence on the output of Viterbi algorithm for the second sub-frame. The threshold is then determined by statistical learning based on the introduced empirical diver…
In source coding, either with or without side information at the decoder, the ultimate performance can be achieved by means of random binning. Structured binning into cosets of performing channel codes has been successfully employed in practical applications. In this letter it is formally shown that various convolutional- and turbo-syndrome decoding algorithms proposed in literature lead in fact to the same estimate. An equivalent implementation is also delineated by directly tackling syndrome decoding as a maximum a posteriori probability problem and solving it by means of iterative message-p…
Convolutional codes are constructed, designed and analysed using row and/or block structures of unit algebraic schemes. Infinite series of such codes and of codes with specific properties are derived. Properties are shown algebraically and algebraic decoding methods are derived. For a given rate and given error-correction capability at each component, convolutional codes with these specifications and with efficient decoding algorithms are constructed. Explicit prototype examples are given but in general large lengths and large error capability are achievable. Convolutional codes with efficient…
This paper investigates the decoding process of asynchronous convolutional-coded physical-layer network coding (PNC) systems. Specifically, we put forth a layered decoding framework for convolutional-coded PNC consisting of three layers: symbol realignment layer, codeword realignment layer, and joint channel-decoding network coding (Jt-CNC) decoding layer. Our framework can deal with phase asynchrony and symbol arrival-time asynchrony between the signals simultaneously transmitted by multiple sources. A salient feature of this framework is that it can handle both fractional and integral symbol…
A lower bound on minimum distance of convolutional polar codes is provided. The bound is obtained from the minimum weight of generalized cosets of the codes generated by bottom rows of the polarizing matrix. Moreover, a construction of convolutional polar subcodes is proposed, which provides improved performance under successive cancellation list decoding. For sufficiently large list size, the decoding complexity of convolutional polar subcodes appears to be lower compared to Arikan polar subcodes with the same performance. The error probability of successive cancellation list decoding of conv…
This paper considers the average complexity of maximum likelihood (ML) decoding of convolutional codes. ML decoding can be modeled as finding the most probable path taken through a Markov graph. Integrated with the Viterbi algorithm (VA), complexity reduction methods such as the sphere decoder often use the sum log likelihood (SLL) of a Markov path as a bound to disprove the optimality of other Markov path sets and to consequently avoid exhaustive path search. In this paper, it is shown that SLL-based optimality tests are inefficient if one fixes the coding memory and takes the codeword length…
Maximum distance profile (MDP) convolutional codes have been proven to be very suitable for transmission over an erasure channel. In addition, the subclass of complete MDP convolutional codes has the ability to restart decoding after a burst of erasures. However, there is a lack of constructions of these codes over fields of small size. In this paper, we introduce the notion of complete j-MDP convolutional codes, which are a generalization of complete MDP convolutional codes, and describe their decoding properties. In particular, we present a decoding algorithm for decoding erasures within a g…
Polar codes were introduced in 2009 by Arikan as the first efficient encoding and decoding scheme that is capacity achieving for symmetric binary-input memoryless channels. Recently, this code family was extended by replacing the block-structured polarization step of polar codes by a convolutional structure. This article presents a numerical exploration of this so-called convolutional polar codes family to find efficient generalizations of polar codes, both in terms of decoding speed and decoding error probability. The main conclusion drawn from our study is that increasing the convolution dep…
We correct errors in Section III-B of the above-titled paper. The corrections are related to the joint distribution of the inputs to the main decoder which corresponds to a branch in the code trellis for the main decoder. Note that as far as the distribution of the input corresponding to a single code symbol is concerned, the results in Section III-B are correct. We have noticed that alpha in Proposition 12 (beta in Proposition 14) has another meaning, which has made it possible to derive the joint distribution of the inputs corresponding to the whole branch. Corrections are based on this impo…
We present extensions to Raghavan and Baum's reliability-output Viterbi algorithm (ROVA) to accommodate tail-biting convolutional codes. These tail-biting reliability-output algorithms compute the exact word-error probability of the decoded codeword after first calculating the posterior probability of the decoded tail-biting codeword's starting state. One approach employs a state-estimation algorithm that selects the maximum a posteriori state based on the posterior distribution of the starting states. Another approach is an approximation to the exact tail-biting ROVA that estimates the word-e…
A convolutional code $\C$ over $\ZZ[D]$ is a $\ZZ[D]$-submodule of $\ZZN[D]$ where $\ZZ[D]$ stands for the ring of polynomials with coefficients in $\ZZ$. In this paper, we study the list decoding problem of these codes when the transmission is performed over an erasure channel, that is, we study how much information one can recover from a codeword $w\in \C$ when some of its coefficients have been erased. We do that using the $p$-adic expansion of $w$ and particular representations of the parity-check polynomial matrix of the code. From these matrix polynomial representations we recursively se…
Known for their capacity-achieving abilities, polar codes have been selected as the control channel coding scheme for 5G communications. To satisfy the needs of high throughput and low latency, belief propagation (BP) is chosen as the decoding algorithm. However, in general, the error performance of BP is worse than that of enhanced successive cancellation (SC). Recently, critical-set bit-flipping (CS-BF) is applied to BP decoding to lower the error rate. However, its trial and error process result in even longer latency. In this work, we propose a convolutional neural network-assisted bit-fli…
A common problem on sequential-type decoding is that at the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) below the one corresponding to the cutoff rate, the average decoding complexity per information bit and the required stack size grow rapidly with the information length. In order to alleviate the problem in the maximum-likelihood sequential decoding algorithm (MLSDA), we propose to directly eliminate the top path whose end node is $Δ$-trellis-level prior to the farthest one among all nodes that have been expanded thus far by the sequential search. Following random coding argument, we analyze the early-elimi…
In a digital communication system, information is sent from one place to another over a noisy communication channel. It may be possible to detect and correct errors that occur during the transmission if one encodes the original information by adding redundant bits. Low-density parity-check (LDPC) convolutional codes, a member of the LDPC code family, encode the original information to improve error correction capability. In practice these codes are used to decode very long information sequences, where the information arrives in subsequent packets over time, such as video streams. We consider t…
Motivated by the need to communicate short control messages in 5G and beyond, this paper carefully designs codes for cyclic redundancy check (CRC)-aided list decoding of tail-biting convolutional codes (TBCCs) and polar codes. Both codes send a 32-bit message using an 11-bit CRC and 512 transmitted bits. We aim to provide a careful, fair comparison of the error performance and decoding complexity of polar and TBCC techniques for a specific case. Specifically, a TBCC is designed to match the rate of a (512, 43) polar code, and optimal 11-bit CRCs for both codes are designed. The paper examines …
This paper proposes a rate-profile construction method for polarization-adjusted convolutional (PAC) codes of any code length and rate, which is capable of maintaining trade-off between the error-correction performance and decoding complexity of PAC code. The proposed method can improve the error-correction performance of PAC codes while guaranteeing a low mean sequential decoding complexity for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values beyond a target SNR value.
We consider a wireless sensors network scenario where two nodes detect correlated sources and deliver them to a central collector via a wireless link. Differently from the Slepian-Wolf approach to distributed source coding, in the proposed scenario the sensing nodes do not perform any pre-compression of the sensed data. Original data are instead independently encoded by means of low-complexity convolutional codes. The decoder performs joint decoding with the aim of exploiting the inherent correlation between the transmitted sources. Complexity at the decoder is kept low thanks to the use of an…
We introduce the notion of innovations for Viterbi decoding of convolutional codes. First we define a kind of innovation corresponding to the received data, i.e., the input to a Viterbi decoder. Then the structure of a Scarce-State-Transition (SST) Viterbi decoder is derived in a natural manner. It is shown that the newly defined innovation is just the input to the main decoder in an SST Viterbi decoder and generates the same syndrome as the original received data does. A similar result holds for Quick-Look-In (QLI) codes as well. In this case, however, the precise innovation is not defined. W…
This paper studies the joint design of optimal convolutional codes (CCs) and CRC codes when serial list Viterbi algorithm (S-LVA) is employed in order to achieve the target frame error rate (FER). We first analyze the S-LVA performance with respect to SNR and list size, repsectively, and prove the convergence of the expected number of decoding attempts when SNR goes to the extreme. We then propose the coded channel capacity as the criterion to jointly design optimal CC-CRC pair and optimal list size and show that the optimal list size of S-LVA is always the cardinality of all possible CCs. Wit…
Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学）；Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Information Security Technology（广东省信息安全技术重点实验室）；Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.（华为技术有限公司）
We investigate error propagation in sliding window decoding of braided convolutional codes (BCCs). Previous studies of BCCs have focused on iterative decoding thresholds, minimum distance properties, and their bit error rate (BER) performance at small to moderate frame length. Here, we consider a sliding window decoder in the context of large frame length or one that continuously outputs blocks in a streaming fashion. In this case, decoder error propagation, due to the feedback inherent in BCCs, can be a serious problem.In order to mitigate the effects of error propagation, we propose several …
The multidimensional convolutional codes are an extension of the notion of convolutional codes (CCs) to several dimensions of time. This paper explores the class of two-dimensional convolutional codes (2D CCs) and 2D tail-biting convolutional codes (2D TBCCs), in particular, from several aspects. First, we derive several basic algebraic properties of these codes, applying algebraic methods in order to find bijective encoders, create parity check matrices and to inverse encoders. Next, we discuss the minimum distance and weight distribution properties of these codes. Extending an existing tree-…
Polarization-adjusted convolutional (PAC) codes are special concatenated codes in which we employ a one-to-one convolutional transform as a pre-coding step before the polar transform. In this scheme, the polar transform (as a mapper) and the successive cancellation process (as a demapper) present a synthetic vector channel to the convolutional transformation. The numerical results show that this concatenation improves the Hamming distance properties of polar codes. In this work, we implement the parallel list Viterbi algorithm (LVA) and show how the error correction performance moves from the …
This paper explores the design of convolutional codes for varying constraint lengths, focusing on their role in error correction in digital communication systems. Convolutional codes are essential in achieving reliable data transmission across noisy channels. The constraint length, which determines the memory of the encoder, plays a critical role in the performance of convolutional codes. This study investigates the effect of varying constraint lengths on coding performance, including code rate, complexity, and decoding accuracy. Simulation results and theoretical analysis illustrate the trade…
