Turbo decoding for precoded systems over multipath fading channels

A combined precoding and turbo decoding strategy for multi-path frequency-selective fading channels is presented. The precoder and multi-path fading channel are jointly modeled as a finite-state probabilistic channel to provide the multistage turbo decoder with its statistics information. Both a priori and a posteriori probabilities are used in the metric computation to improve the system performance. Structures of the combined turbo-encoder, interleaver, and precoder in the transmitter and two-stage turbo decoder in the receiver are described. Performance of the proposed scheme in fixed, Rician and Rayleigh multi-path fading channels are evaluated by simulation. The results indicate that the combined precoding and two-stage turbo decoding strategy provides a considerable performance improvement while maintaining the same inner structure of a conventional turbo decoder.