Extrinsic information in iterative decoding: A unified view

In this paper, we address the use of the extrinsic information generated by each component decoder in an iterative decoding process. The algorithm proposed by Bahl et al. (BCJR) and the soft-output Viterbi algorithm (SOVA) are considered as component decoders. In both cases, we consider, in a unified view, various feedback schemes which use the extrinsic information in different fashions. Numerical results for a classical rate-1/2 turbo code and a serially concatenated code transmitted over a memoryless additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel are provided. The performance of the considered schemes leads to interesting remarks about the nature of the extrinsic information.