TURBO CODES

Providing an excellent compromise between complexity and performance, turbo codes have become a reference in the field, and their range of applications is expanding rapidly to mobile communications, interactive television and more. This publication presents international contributions in the field.

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The appearance of a new type of correction code - the turbo code - represents a significant development in the field of error-correcting codes. The decoding principle is to be gound in the interative exchange of information (extrinsic information) between elementary decoders. The turbo concept is now applied to block codes as well as other parts of a digital transmission system such as detection, demodulation and equalization. Providing and excellent compromise between complexity and performance, turbo codes have become a reference in the field and their range of application is increasing rapidly to mobile communications, interactive television, wireless networks and radio loops. Future applications could include cable transmission, short distance communication or data storage. This text contains contribtions on turbo codes from contributors based in France, Sweden, Australia, the USA, Italy, Germany and Norway.