New bounding techniques for channel codes over quasi-static fading channels

This thesis is intended to provide several new bounding techniques for channel codes over quasi-static fading channels (QSFC). This type of channel has drawn more and more attention recently with the demanding need for higher capacity and more reliable wireless communication systems. Although there have been some published results on analyzing the performance of channel codes over QSFCs, most of them produced quite loose performance upper bounds. In this thesis, the general Gallager bounding approach which provides convergent upper bounds of coded systems over QSFCs is addressed first. It is shown that previous Gallager bounds employing trivial low SNR bounds tended to be quite loose. Then improved low instantaneous SNR bounds are derived for two classes of convolutional codes including turbo codes. Consequently, they are combined with the classical Union-Chernoff bound to produce new performance upper bounds for simple convolutional and turbo codes over single-input single-output (SISO) QSFCs. The new bound provides a much improved alternative to characterizing the performance of channel codes over QSFCs over the existing ones. Next the new bounding approach is extended to cases of serially concatenated space-time block codes, which show equivalence with SISO QSFCs. Tighter performance bounds are derived for this coding scheme for two specific cases: first a convolutional code, and later a turbo code. Finally, the more challenging cases of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) QSFCs are investigated. Several performance upper bounds are derived for the bit error probability of different cases of space-time trellis codes (STTC) over QSFCs using a new and tight low SNR bound. Also included in this work is an algorithm for computing the unusual information eigenvalue spectrum of STTCs

Accessible Capacity of Secondary Users

A new problem formulation is presented for the Gaussian interference channels (GIFC) with two pairs of users, which are distinguished as primary users and secondary users, respectively. The primary users employ a pair of encoder and decoder that were originally designed to satisfy a given error performance requirement under the assumption that no interference exists from other users. In the scenario when the secondary users attempt to access the same medium, we are interested in the maximum transmission rate (defined as {\em accessible capacity}) at which secondary users can communicate reliably without affecting the error performance requirement by the primary users under the constraint that the primary encoder (not the decoder) is kept unchanged. By modeling the primary encoder as a generalized trellis code (GTC), we are then able to treat the secondary link and the cross link from the secondary transmitter to the primary receiver as finite state channels (FSCs). Based on this, upper and lower bounds on the accessible capacity are derived. The impact of the error performance requirement by the primary users on the accessible capacity is analyzed by using the concept of interference margin. In the case of non-trivial interference margin, the secondary message is split into common and private parts and then encoded by superposition coding, which delivers a lower bound on the accessible capacity. For some special cases, these bounds can be computed numerically by using the BCJR algorithm. Numerical results are also provided to gain insight into the impacts of the GTC and the error performance requirement on the accessible capacity.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables; Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory on December, 2010, Revised on November, 201

Near-Capacity Turbo Trellis Coded Modulation Design

Bandwidth efficient parallel-concatenated Turbo Trellis Coded Modulation (TTCM) schemes were designed for communicating over uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channels. A symbol-based union bound was derived for analysing the error floor of the proposed TTCM schemes. A pair of In-phase (I) and Quadrature-phase (Q) interleavers were employed for interleaving the I and Q components of the TTCM coded symbols, in order to attain an increased diversity gain. The decoding convergence of the IQ-TTCM schemes was analysed using symbol based EXtrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts. The best TTCM component codes were selected with the aid of both the symbol-based union bound and non-binary EXIT charts for the sake of designing capacity-approaching IQ-TTCM schemes in the context of 8PSK, 16QAM and 32QAM signal sets. It will be shown that our TTCM design is capable of approaching the channel capacity within 0.5 dB at a throughput of 4 bit/s/Hz, when communicating over uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channels using 32QAM

Self-concatenated code design and its application in power-efficient cooperative communications

In this tutorial, we have focused on the design of binary self-concatenated coding schemes with the help of EXtrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts and Union bound analysis. The design methodology of future iteratively decoded self-concatenated aided cooperative communication schemes is presented. In doing so, we will identify the most important milestones in the area of channel coding, concatenated coding schemes and cooperative communication systems till date and suggest future research directions

QPSK Block-Modulation Codes for Unequal Error Protection

Unequal error protection (UEP) codes find applications in broadcast channels, as well as in other digital communication systems, where messages have different degrees of importance. Binary linear UEP (LUEP) codes combined with a Gray mapped QPSK signal set are used to obtain new efficient QPSK block-modulation codes for unequal error protection. Several examples of QPSK modulation codes that have the same minimum squared Euclidean distance as the best QPSK modulation codes, of the same rate and length, are given. In the new constructions of QPSK block-modulation codes, even-length binary LUEP codes are used. Good even-length binary LUEP codes are obtained when shorter binary linear codes are combined using either the well-known |u¯|u¯+v¯|-construction or the so-called construction X. Both constructions have the advantage of resulting in optimal or near-optimal binary LUEP codes of short to moderate lengths, using very simple linear codes, and may be used as constituent codes in the new constructions. LUEP codes lend themselves quite naturally to multistage decoding up to their minimum distance, using the decoding of component subcodes. A new suboptimal two-stage soft-decision decoding of LUEP codes is presented and its application to QPSK block-modulation codes for UEP illustrated