An efficient hybrid decoder for block turbo codes

Abstract

In this letter, an efficient hybrid decoder for block turbo codes (BTCs) is proposed to improve the hybrid BTC decoder developed by Al-Dweik et al. A simple formula for estimating the extrinsic information is first derived. Then the proposed decoder is constructed by modifying the decoder of Al-Dweik et al. using the formula. Simulation results show that the proposed decoder can substantially reduce the complexity of the decoder of Al-Dweik et al., especially for moderate and high signal-to-noise ratios, with nearly the same bit error rate performance.