Error Correction Codes for

Wireless Communication
Systems

Problem definition

In these days, we depend in our daily lives on wireless communication systems. We

therefore need those systems to be highly reliable and error-free, which should not be taken
for granted given the harsh nature of the wireless communication channel. In order to
achieve reliable communication systems, error correction codes (ECC) must be used. Error
correction codes exist in various ways and forms.

Objective of the project

Knowing that the error correction codes can be used to improve the reliability of wireless
communication systems, it is important to realize that they are not for free. Besides the cost
of implementing the additional blocks needed to perform the coding/decoding, the highest
cost of implementing ECC is the time delay introduced by these blocks. The objective of this
project is to investigate the performance of different types of ECC techniques and compare
the performance of the different techniques and also their costs. These comparisons will
allow the design engineer to make a smart decision on what ECC technique to use for each
specific application depending on the application’s error tolerance and delay-sensitivity.

Procedure and methods used

In this project, two different types of data signals (namely JPEG images and ASCII text
messages) are transmitted through a simulated communication system. The communication
system, shown in Figure 1, is simulated using Matlab functions. The different channel
encoding and decoding blocks are also implemented as Matlab functions.

A JPEG format image and an ASCII text message are chosen as examples and are
transmitted through the system. At the receiver end, the system displays the received image
and text message as well as numerically displaying the Bit Error Rate (BER) observed in the
system and the elapsed processing time. The simulation is run multiple times and the
obtained results are recorded and used to create a plot of the BER versus the coding rate n,
and another plot of the processing time versus n.

A convolutional encoder/decoder pair are also created and used to investigate the
performance of this technique in error correction. The results are added to the existing plots
for the sake of comparison.

Channe Chann
Source De- Source
l el
Encod modulat Decod
Encode Modulat Decode
er or or er
r r
 Figure 1. Simulation block diagram of wireless communication system.
Results
This section contains the result obtained in the different parts of this project.
Task 1
To test the performance of the n-redundancy coding, a law enforcement cartoon and an
emergency text message were used as examples for image and text messaging
communication systems respectively.

Figure 2(a). Transmitted image Figure 2(b). Image received with 2-redundancy
coding

Fire at 100 S. Main St. DËrá$àt 10 s Iaél d.

Figure 3(a). Transmitted text Figure 3(b). Text received with 2-redundancy coding
message

When the law enforcement cartoon image was transmitted, the results obtained for different
values of the coding rate “n” are shown in table 1. These results are plotted and the plot is
shown in Figure 4.

35 200

30
Processing Time (seconds)

150
25
Error Percentage

20
100
15

10
50
5

0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Coding Rate (n) Coding Rate (n)

Figure 4. Performance and cost values of the image communication system for
different values of the coding rate “n.”

Convolutional Coding
The convolutional coder implemented in this project is a 1/3 encoder with generator
polynomials: G1 = (1,0,1), G2 = (0,1,1), & G3 = (1,1,0). For each data bit x(i) corresponds a 3-
bit code y1(i)y2(i)y3(i) with
y1 (i ) = 1× x(i ) ⊕ 0 × x (i −1) ⊕1× x (i − 2) G1
y2 (i ) = 0 × x (i ) ⊕1× x (i −1) ⊕1× x (i − 2) G2
y3 (i ) = 1× x (i ) ⊕1× x(i −1) ⊕ 0 × x(i − 2) G3

TABLE 1. THE BER AND PROCESSING TIME VALUES TABLE 2. THE VALID CODE SEQUENCES OF THE
CORRESPONDING TO THE IMAGE IN FIGURE 2 CONSIDERED CONVOLUTIONAL CODING SYSTEM
n Bit Error Processing 000 000 000
Rate (%) time (secs) 000 000 101
1 34.3 21.8 000 101 011
2 11.2 43.12 000 101 110
3 4.8 65.7 101 011 110
4 2.1 91.1 101 011 011
5 1.2 116.4 101 110 101
6 0.4 144.2 101 110 000
7 0.12 169.6

The results show that this covolutional coding system results in a BER of 4.6% with a
processing time of 52 seconds.

Conclusion and things learned

In this project, I gained a good understanding of what engineers do in their real-life jobs; it
showed me how engineers, being problem solvers, work hard to find solutions to real-life
problems and develop new technologies that create new opportunities and improve the
quality of life of everyone in the society.
As far as engineering design concepts, the project helped me understand the performance
vs cost trade-off and understand the fact that the solution of a problem is not always the one
with the absolute best performance, but the one with the best performance within the budget
limits. It also showed me how engineers create their designs within budget limits and other
physical constraints and restrictions.
For example, considering the image communication system, it seems that using a 3-
redundancy coding system that introduces a simulation delay of 44 seconds, but reduces the
BER by about 23%, will be a wise decision. However, upgrading the coding system to 7-
redundancy, which introduces an additional delay of more than a 100 seconds while
improving the BER by less than 5% is not a cost effective decision, and is rather a luxury
that depends on the application’s flexibility.
The project also showed that the solution to a problem is not unique and depends on the
nature of the considered application. For example, in the image application, when the image
is received with a 10% of error, it is still possible for a law enforcement agency to recognize
the face of the wanted person. However, the emergency text message received with a BER
of 10% is definitely unreadable and totally useless. Also different applications have different
delay sensitivities. While it seems tolerable to wait a 100 seconds to receive an email or a
text message, a 5 second delay between talking parties is considered unacceptable.
The project also showed the importance of computer simulations in the development stages
of new products; it is almost impossible to implement all the discussed systems to find out
which one of them is the most appropriate to be built.
Serial Receiver Circuit Diagram
Serial Transmitter Circuit Diagaram
 Error Correction System
FOR
Wireless Communication
Systems

SERIAL RECEIVER
&
SERIAL TRANSMITTER

GROUP MEMBER :-
NAME UNIVERSITY ROLL NO.
Samir Kumar 7100405870

Samita Kumari 7100405872

Shaitab Ali 7100405875

Suman Sah 7100405883