Improving the Error Rate Performance of Turbo Codes using the Forced Symbol Method

This letter presents a method that significantly improves the error rate performance of turbo codes, especially in the error flare region, without changing the basic encoder structure. This method applies repeated decoding, with one or more symbols being forced to certain values, when an error is detected. This forces the decoder to output alternate sets of decisions that can then be checked for errors. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated by its ability to lower the error flare by several orders of magnitude as soon as the error flare region is encountered. For the DVB-RCS 8-state, rate 1/2, double-binary turbo code and packets of 1504 information bits (MPEG-size), this method yields performance about 0.4 dB from the sphere-packing bound down to a packet error rate of 10-7.