Repeated convolutional codes for high-error-rate channels

An error-correction scheme for an M-ary symmetric channel (MSC) characterized by a large error probability p_e is considered. The value of p_e can be near, but smaller than, 1-1/M, for which the channel capacity is zero, such as may occur in a jamming environment. The coding scheme consists of an outer convolutional code and an inner repetition code of length m that is used for each convolutional code symbol. At the receiving end, the m inner code symbols are used to form a soft-decision metric, which is passed to a soft-decision decoder for the convolutional code. The effect of finite quantization and methods to generate binary metrics for M>2 are investigated. Monte Carlo simulation results are presented. For the binary symmetric channel (BSC), it is shown that the overall code rate is larger than 0.6R₀, where R₀ is the cutoff rate of the channel. New union bounds on the bit error probability for systems with a binary convolutional code on 4-ary and 8-ary orthogonal channels are presented. For a BSC and a large m, a method is presented for BER approximation based on the central limit theorem