Error-correction on non-standard communication channels

Many communication systems are poorly modelled by the standard channels assumed in the information theory literature, such as the binary symmetric channel or the additive white Gaussian noise channel. Real systems suffer from additional problems including time-varying noise, cross-talk, synchronization errors and latency constraints. In this thesis, low-density parity-check codes and codes related to them are applied to non-standard channels. First, we look at time-varying noise modelled by a Markov channel. A low-density parity-check code decoder is modified to give an improvement of over 1dB. Secondly, novel codes based on low-density parity-check codes are introduced which produce transmissions with Pr(bit = 1) ≠ Pr(bit = 0). These non-linear codes are shown to be good candidates for multi-user channels with crosstalk, such as optical channels. Thirdly, a channel with synchronization errors is modelled by random uncorrelated insertion or deletion events at unknown positions. Marker codes formed from low-density parity-check codewords with regular markers inserted within them are studied. It is shown that a marker code with iterative decoding has performance close to the bounds on the channel capacity, significantly outperforming other known codes. Finally, coding for a system with latency constraints is studied. For example, if a telemetry system involves a slow channel some error correction is often needed quickly whilst the code should be able to correct remaining errors later. A new code is formed from the intersection of a convolutional code with a high rate low-density parity-check code. The convolutional code has good early decoding performance and the high rate low-density parity-check code efficiently cleans up remaining errors after receiving the entire block. Simulations of the block code show a gain of 1.5dB over a standard NASA code

On Code Design for Interference Channels

abstract: There has been a lot of work on the characterization of capacity and achievable rate regions, and rate region outer-bounds for various multi-user channels of interest. Parallel to the developed information theoretic results, practical codes have also been designed for some multi-user channels such as multiple access channels, broadcast channels and relay channels; however, interference channels have not received much attention and only a limited amount of work has been conducted on them. With this motivation, in this dissertation, design of practical and implementable channel codes is studied focusing on multi-user channels with special emphasis on interference channels; in particular, irregular low-density-parity-check codes are exploited for a variety of cases and trellis based codes for short block length designs are performed. Novel code design approaches are first studied for the two-user Gaussian multiple access channel. Exploiting Gaussian mixture approximation, new methods are proposed wherein the optimized codes are shown to improve upon the available designs and off-the-shelf point-to-point codes applied to the multiple access channel scenario. The code design is then examined for the two-user Gaussian interference channel implementing the Han-Kobayashi encoding and decoding strategy. Compared with the point-to-point codes, the newly designed codes consistently offer better performance. Parallel to this work, code design is explored for the discrete memoryless interference channels wherein the channel inputs and outputs are taken from a finite alphabet and it is demonstrated that the designed codes are superior to the single user codes used with time sharing. Finally, the code design principles are also investigated for the two-user Gaussian interference channel employing trellis-based codes with short block lengths for the case of strong and mixed interference levels.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

802.11 Payload Iterative decoding between multiple transmission attempts

Abstract. The institute of electrical and electronics engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard specifies widely used technology for wireless local area networks (WLAN). Standard specifies high-performance physical and media access control (MAC) layers for a distributed network but lacks an effective hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ). Currently, the standard specifies forward error correction (FEC), error detection (ED), and automatic repeat request (ARQ), but in case of decoding errors, the previously transmitted information is not used when decoding the retransmitted packet. This is called Type 1 HARQ. Type 1 HARQ uses received energy inefficiently, but the simple implementation makes it an attractive solution. Unfortunately, research applying more sophisticated HARQ schemes on top of IEEE 802.11 is limited. In this Master’s Thesis, a novel HARQ technology based on packet retransmissions that can be decoded in a turbo-like manner, keeping as much as possible compatibility with vanilla 802.11, is proposed. The proposed technology is simulated with both the IEEE 802.11 code and with the robust, efficient and smart communication in unpredictable environments (RESCUE) code. An additional interleaver is added before the convolutional encoder in the proposed technology, interleaving either the whole frame or only the payload to enable effective iterative decoding. For received frames, turbo-like iterations are done between initially transmitted packet copy and retransmissions. Results are compared against the non-iterative combining method maximizing signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), maximum ratio combining (MRC). The main design goal for this technology is to maintain compatibility with the 802.11 standard while allowing efficient HARQ. Other design goals are range extension, higher throughput, and better performance in terms of bit error rate (BER) and frame error rate (FER). This technology can be used for range extension at low SNR range and may provide up to 4 dB gain at medium SNR range compared to MRC. At high SNR, technology can reduce the penalty from retransmission allowing higher average modulation and coding scheme (MCS). However, these gains come with the cost of computational complexity from the iterative decoding. The main limiting factors of the proposed technology are decoding errors in the header and the scrambler area, and resource-hungry-processing. In simulations, perfect synchronization and packet detection is assumed, but in reality, especially at low SNR, packet detection and synchronization would be challenging. 802.11 pakettien iteratiivinen dekoodaus lähetysten välillä. Tiivistelmä. IEEE 802.11-standardi määrittelee yleisesti käytetyn teknologian langattomille lähiverkoille. Standardissa määritellään tehokas fyysinen- ja verkkoliityntäkerros hajautetuille verkoille, mutta siitä puuttuu tehokas yhdistetty automaattinen uudelleenlähetys. Nykyisellään standardi määrittelee virheenkorjaavan koodin, virheellisen paketin tunnistuksen sekä automaattisen uudelleenlähetyksen, mutta aikaisemmin lähetetyn paketin informaatiota ei käytetä hyväksi uudelleenlähetystilanteessa. Tämä menetelmä tunnetaan tyypin yksi yhdistettynä automaattisena uudelleenlähetyksenä. Tyypin yksi yhdistetty automaattinen uudelleenlähetys käyttää vastaanotettua signaalia tehottomasti, mutta yksinkertaisuus tekee siitä houkuttelevan vaihtoehdon. Valitettavasti edistyneempien uudelleenlähetysvaihtoehtojen tutkimusta 802.11-standardiin on rajoitetusti. Tässä diplomityössä esitellään uusi yhdistetty uudelleenlähetysteknologia, joka pohjautuu pakettien uudelleenlähetykseen, sallien turbo-tyylisen dekoodaamisen säilyttäen mahdollisimman hyvän taaksepäin yhteensopivuutta alkuperäisen 802.11-standardin kanssa. Tämä teknologia on simuloitu käyttäen sekä 802.11- että nk. RESCUE-virheenkorjauskoodia. Teknologiassa uusi lomittaja on lisätty konvoluutio-enkoodaajan eteen, sallien tehokkaan iteratiivisen dekoodaamisen, lomittaen joko koko paketin tai ainoastaan hyötykuorman. Vastaanotetuille paketeille tehdään turbo-tyyppinen iteraatio alkuperäisen vastaanotetun kopion ja uudelleenlähetyksien välillä. Tuloksia vertaillaan eiiteratiiviseen yhdistämismenetelmään, maksimisuhdeyhdistelyyn, joka maksimoi yhdistetyn signaali-kohinasuhteen. Tärkeimpänä suunnittelutavoitteena tässä työssä on tehokas uudelleenlähetysmenetelmä, joka ylläpitää taaksepäin yhteensopivuutta IEEE 802.11-standardin kanssa. Muita tavoitteita ovat kantaman lisäys, nopeampi yhteys ja matalampi bitti- ja pakettivirhesuhde. Kehitettyä teknologiaa voidaan käyttää kantaman lisäykseen matalan signaalikohinasuhteen vallitessa ja se on jopa 4 dB parempi kohtuullisella signaalikohinasuhteella kuin maksimisuhdeyhdistely. Korkealla signaali-kohinasuhteella teknologiaa voidaan käyttää pienentämään häviötä epäonnistuneesta paketinlähetyksestä ja täten sallien korkeamman modulaatio-koodiasteen käyttämisen. Valitettavasti nämä parannukset tulevat kasvaneen laskennallisen monimutkaisuuden kustannuksella, johtuen iteratiivisesta dekoodaamisesta. Isoimmat rajoittavat tekijät teknologian käytössä ovat dekoodausvirheet otsikossa ja datamuokkaimen siemenessä. Tämän lisäksi käyttöä rajoittaa resurssisyöppö prosessointi. Simulaatioissa oletetaan täydellinen synkronisointi, mutta todellisuudessa, erityisesti matalalla signaali-kohinasuhteella, paketin tunnistus ja synkronointi voivat olla haasteellisia

Models and information-theoretic bounds for nanopore sequencing

Nanopore sequencing is an emerging new technology for sequencing DNA, which can read long fragments of DNA (~50,000 bases) in contrast to most current short-read sequencing technologies which can only read hundreds of bases. While nanopore sequencers can acquire long reads, the high error rates (20%-30%) pose a technical challenge. In a nanopore sequencer, a DNA is migrated through a nanopore and current variations are measured. The DNA sequence is inferred from this observed current pattern using an algorithm called a base-caller. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model for the "channel" from the input DNA sequence to the observed current, and calculate bounds on the information extraction capacity of the nanopore sequencer. This model incorporates impairments like (non-linear) inter-symbol interference, deletions, as well as random response. These information bounds have two-fold application: (1) The decoding rate with a uniform input distribution can be used to calculate the average size of the plausible list of DNA sequences given an observed current trace. This bound can be used to benchmark existing base-calling algorithms, as well as serving a performance objective to design better nanopores. (2) When the nanopore sequencer is used as a reader in a DNA storage system, the storage capacity is quantified by our bounds

Low-Complexity Iterative Receivers

La tesi affronta il problema delle comunicazioni digitali su canali con memoria, ponendo particolare enfasi su canali affetti da interferenza intersimbolica e canali affetti da rumore impulsivo. In particolare, l'analisi e il progetto vengono rivolti ai ricevitori ad oggi considerati come i più efficaci in tali scenari, ossia i ricevitori iterativi. Il fattore di qualità cruciale per un sistema di comunicazione viene considerato, nell'intera tesi, un conveniente compromesso tra complessità e prestazioni, piuttosto che le sole prestazioni. Il maggiore contributo del lavoro di tesi consiste in un insieme di ricevitori in grado di offrire, a parità di complessità, prestazioni migliori rispetto alle soluzioni di letteratura.The thesis addresses the problem of providing reliable communications over channels with memory, with particular emphasis on channels impaired by intersymbol interference and channels impaired by impulse noise. In particular, the receivers to date considered as the most effective for such scenarios, namely the iterative receivers, are investigated. Throughout the work, a convenient performance/complexity tradeoff, rather than the performance only, is considered as the key quality figure for a communication system. The main contribution the thesis provides is a set of low-complexity receivers that impressively outperform the existing receivers with similar complexity