Improved joint turbo decoding and physical-layer network coding

We present an improved decoding algorithm for joint turbo decoding and physical-layer network coding. Instead of decoding the individual (binary) messages separately at the relay, the proposed algorithm, from the superimposed faded signals, yields an XOR estimate of the sent messages. Moreover, we introduce a softening of the XOR values to improve the overall performance. Simulation results show that this simple idea yields gains up to 4.5 dB in a Rayleigh fading channel model when compared to a similar scheme.