Instructor:
Sergio Benedetto, Politecnico di Torino

Abstract:
Turbo-like codes are formed by concatenating two or more simple constituent convolutional in a parallel or serial fashion through one or more interleavers. They have astonishing performance close to the Shannon limits, yet enabling simple decoding algorithms whose complexity is comparable to that of decoding the constituent codes. After their invention in 1993, they have been inserted and standardized in several systems, like W-CDMA, DVB-RCS, CCSDS. Also, numerous applications of the so-called "turbo principle" applied to fields like equalization, multiuser detection, carrier synchronization, and others has been successfully proposed. This tutorial provides an understanding of the principles governing the codes behavior, analytical tools to evaluate the maximum likelihood performance, design rules for both the constituent codes and the interleaver, explanation of the maximum-a-posteriori algorithms which form the core of the iterative decoding algorithms, extensive analytical and simulation results, a comparative analysis of the implementation complexity, and a number of important applications like third-generation wireless communications, and deep-space communications. A performance/complexity comparison on a case study with low-density parity-check codes will also be described.

Instructor Bios:
Sergio Benedetto is a Full Professor of Digital Communications at Politecnico di Torino, Italy since 1981. He has been a Visiting Professor at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), at University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and is an Adjunct Professor at Ecole Nationale Superieure de Telecommunications in Paris. In 1998, he received the Italgas Prize for Scientific Research and Innovation. Recently, he has been awarded the title of Distinguished Lecturer by the IEEE Communications Society. He has co-authored two books on probability and signal theory (in italian), the book "Digital Transmission Theory" (Prentice-Hall, 1987), "Optical Fiber Communications" (Artech House, 1996), and "Principles of Digital Communications with Wireless Applications" (Plenum-Kluwer, 1999), and over 250 papers in leading journals and conferences. He has taught several continuing education courses on the subject of channel coding for the UCLA Extension Program and for the CEI Organization. He was the Chairman of the Communications Theory Symposium of ICC 2001, and the Area Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications for Modulation and Signal Design for five years. Professor Benedetto is the Chairman of the Communication Theory Committee of IEEE and a Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE.