Parallel concatenated coding schemes for wireless application

We design parallel concatenated convolutional coding (PCCC) schemes (“turbo codes”) suitable for wireless applications requiring short latencies. Particular attention is devoted to the comparison of different solutions for the code interleaver. A new algorithm is applied to the evaluation of the distance spectrum of the overall PCCC, and several interleaver alternatives are analyzed and compared using analytical upper bounds at low BER and simulation through the iterative decoding algorithm at high BER. The choice of the PCCC rate and of the interleaver length are based on the GSM system, so as to be able to compare the new solution with the results obtainable by the present channel coding standard, which, for TCH/FS GSM (full rate speech traffic channel), consists of a (53,50) parity check code followed by a 16-state rate 1/2 binary convolutional code