Near optimum error correcting coding and decoding: turbo-codes

This paper presents a new family of convolutional codes, nicknamed turbo-codes, built from a particular concatenation of two recursive systematic codes, linked together by nonuniform interleaving. Decoding calls on iterative processing in which each component decoder takes advantage of the work of the other at the previous step, with the aid of the original concept of extrinsic information. For sufficiently large interleaving sizes, the correcting performance of turbo-codes, investigated by simulation, appears to be close to the theoretical limit predicted by Shannon.