Advanced channel coding for space mission telecommand links

We investigate and compare different options for updating the error correcting code currently used in space mission telecommand links. Taking as a reference the solutions recently emerged as the most promising ones, based on Low-Density Parity-Check codes, we explore the behavior of alternative schemes, based on parallel concatenated turbo codes and soft-decision decoded BCH codes. Our analysis shows that these further options can offer similar or even better performance.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, presented at IEEE VTC 2013 Fall, Las Vegas, USA, Sep. 2013 Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC 2013 Fall), ISBN 978-1-6185-9, Las Vegas, USA, Sep. 201

Minimum Pseudoweight Analysis of 3-Dimensional Turbo Codes

In this work, we consider pseudocodewords of (relaxed) linear programming (LP) decoding of 3-dimensional turbo codes (3D-TCs). We present a relaxed LP decoder for 3D-TCs, adapting the relaxed LP decoder for conventional turbo codes proposed by Feldman in his thesis. We show that the 3D-TC polytope is proper and $C$-symmetric, and make a connection to finite graph covers of the 3D-TC factor graph. This connection is used to show that the support set of any pseudocodeword is a stopping set of iterative decoding of 3D-TCs using maximum a posteriori constituent decoders on the binary erasure channel. Furthermore, we compute ensemble-average pseudoweight enumerators of 3D-TCs and perform a finite-length minimum pseudoweight analysis for small cover degrees. Also, an explicit description of the fundamental cone of the 3D-TC polytope is given. Finally, we present an extensive numerical study of small-to-medium block length 3D-TCs, which shows that 1) typically (i.e., in most cases) when the minimum distance $d_{\rm min}$ and/or the stopping distance $h_{\rm min}$ is high, the minimum pseudoweight (on the additive white Gaussian noise channel) is strictly smaller than both the $d_{\rm min}$ and the $h_{\rm min}$, and 2) the minimum pseudoweight grows with the block length, at least for small-to-medium block lengths.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Communication

ARA type protograph codes

An apparatus and method for encoding low-density parity check codes. Together with a repeater, an interleaver and an accumulator, the apparatus comprises a precoder, thus forming accumulate-repeat-accumulate (ARA codes). Protographs representing various types of ARA codes, including AR3A, AR4A and ARJA codes, are described. High performance is obtained when compared to the performance of current repeat-accumulate (RA) or irregular-repeat-accumulate (IRA) codes

Near-capacity fixed-rate and rateless channel code constructions

Fixed-rate and rateless channel code constructions are designed for satisfying conflicting design tradeoffs, leading to codes that benefit from practical implementations, whilst offering a good bit error ratio (BER) and block error ratio (BLER) performance. More explicitly, two novel low-density parity-check code (LDPC) constructions are proposed; the first construction constitutes a family of quasi-cyclic protograph LDPC codes, which has a Vandermonde-like parity-check matrix (PCM). The second construction constitutes a specific class of protograph LDPC codes, which are termed as multilevel structured (MLS) LDPC codes. These codes possess a PCM construction that allows the coexistence of both pseudo-randomness as well as a structure requiring a reduced memory. More importantly, it is also demonstrated that these benefits accrue without any compromise in the attainable BER/BLER performance. We also present the novel concept of separating multiple users by means of user-specific channel codes, which is referred to as channel code division multiple access (CCDMA), and provide an example based on MLS LDPC codes. In particular, we circumvent the difficulty of having potentially high memory requirements, while ensuring that each user’s bits in the CCDMA system are equally protected. With regards to rateless channel coding, we propose a novel family of codes, which we refer to as reconfigurable rateless codes, that are capable of not only varying their code-rate but also to adaptively modify their encoding/decoding strategy according to the near-instantaneous channel conditions. We demonstrate that the proposed reconfigurable rateless codes are capable of shaping their own degree distribution according to the nearinstantaneous requirements imposed by the channel, but without any explicit channel knowledge at the transmitter. Additionally, a generalised transmit preprocessing aided closed-loop downlink multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system is presented, in which both the channel coding components as well as the linear transmit precoder exploit the knowledge of the channel state information (CSI). More explicitly, we embed a rateless code in a MIMO transmit preprocessing scheme, in order to attain near-capacity performance across a wide range of channel signal-to-ratios (SNRs), rather than only at a specific SNR. The performance of our scheme is further enhanced with the aid of a technique, referred to as pilot symbol assisted rateless (PSAR) coding, whereby a predetermined fraction of pilot bits is appropriately interspersed with the original information bits at the channel coding stage, instead of multiplexing pilots at the modulation stage, as in classic pilot symbol assisted modulation (PSAM). We subsequently demonstrate that the PSAR code-aided transmit preprocessing scheme succeeds in gleaning more information from the inserted pilots than the classic PSAM technique, because the pilot bits are not only useful for sounding the channel at the receiver but also beneficial for significantly reducing the computational complexity of the rateless channel decoder

Sparse graph-based coding schemes for continuous phase modulations

The use of the continuous phase modulation (CPM) is interesting when the channel represents a strong non-linearity and in the case of limited spectral support; particularly for the uplink, where the satellite holds an amplifier per carrier, and for downlinks where the terminal equipment works very close to the saturation region. Numerous studies have been conducted on this issue but the proposed solutions use iterative CPM demodulation/decoding concatenated with convolutional or block error correcting codes. The use of LDPC codes has not yet been introduced. Particularly, no works, to our knowledge, have been done on the optimization of sparse graph-based codes adapted for the context described here. In this study, we propose to perform the asymptotic analysis and the design of turbo-CPM systems based on the optimization of sparse graph-based codes. Moreover, an analysis on the corresponding receiver will be done

Generalized Spatially-Coupled Parallel Concatenated Codes With Partial Repetition

A new class of spatially-coupled turbo-like codes (SC-TCs), dubbed generalized spatially coupled parallel concatenated codes (GSC-PCCs), is introduced. These codes are constructed by applying spatial coupling on parallel concatenated codes (PCCs) with a fraction of information bits repeated q times. GSC-PCCs can be seen as a generalization of the original spatially-coupled parallel concatenated codes proposed by Moloudi et al. [2]. To characterize the asymptotic performance of GSC-PCCs, we derive the corresponding density evolution equations and compute their decoding thresholds. The threshold saturation effect is observed and proven. Most importantly, we rigorously prove that the rate-R GSC-PCC ensemble with 2-state convolutional component codes achieves at least a fraction 1-R/R+q of the capacity of the binary erasure channel (BEC) for repetition factor q ≥ 2 and this multiplicative gap vanishes as q tends to infinity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first class of SC-TCs that are proven to be capacity-achieving. Further, the connection between the strength of the component codes, the decoding thresholds of GSC-PCCs, and the repetition factor is established. The superiority of the proposed codes with finite blocklength is exemplified by comparing their error performance with that of existing SC-TCs via computer simulations