Turbo-code termination schemes and a novel alternative for short frames

Abstract

A coding scheme, termed turbo-codes was proposed, which achieves results very close to the Shannon-limit. The encoding and decoding of turbo-codes is reviewed. In particular, a comparison of the current methods used for terminating the trellis of the turbo-code are described. A novel approach to termination of the code is introduced which removes the need to transmit tail bits across the channel. A reduction in transmitted symbols by 2 percent is achieved for PCS CDMA type applications. Simulations confirm that the novel approach is better in terms of BER than other methods of termination.