Design of rate-compatible punctured turbo (RCPT) codes

In this paper, we propose and compare some design criteria for the search of good rate-compatible turbo (RCPT) codes families. The considerations presented in [1] to find “best” component encoders for turbo codes construction are extended to find the “best” rate-compatible puncturing patterns for a given interleaver length . This approach is shown to be the optimal one, both in the maximumlikelihood sense (using transfer function bounds) and in the iterative decoding sense (through simulation results). A ratecompatibility restriction to the puncturing rule is used, implying that all the code bits of a high-rate punctured code are used by the lower rate codes. The two main applications of this technique are its use in modified type II ARQ/FEC schemes and to achieve unequal error protection of an information sequence.