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Hamming (7,4) code with soft and hard decoding
Posted By Krishna Sankar On March 15, 2012 @ 6:37 am In Coding | 16 Comments
An earlier post we discussed hard decision decoding for a Hamming (7,4) code [1] and simulated the the bit error rate. In this post, let us focus on the soft decision decoding for the Hamming (7,4) code, and quantify the bounds in the performance gain.
With a Hamming code, we have 4 information bits and we need to add 3 parity bits to form the 7 coded bits.
The coding operation can be denoted in matrix algebra as follows:
where,
is the message sequence of dimension
,
is the coding matrix of dimension
,
is the coded sequence of dimension
.
Using the example provided in chapter eight (example 8.1-1) of Digital Communications by John Proakis [2] , let the coding matrix be,
.
This matrix can be thought of as,
,
where,
is a
identity matrix and
is a
the parity check matrix.
Since an identity matrix, the first
coded bits are identical to source message bits and the remaining
bits form the parity check matrix.
This type of code matrix where the raw message bits are send as is is called systematic code.
Assuming that the message sequence is , then the coded output sequence is :
, where
,
,
.
The operator denotes exclusive-OR (XOR) operator.
The matrix of valid coded sequence of dimension
Sl No | m0 | m1 | m2 | m3 | p0 | p1 | p2 |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
10 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
11 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
12 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
13 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
14 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
15 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Table: Coded output sequence for all possible input sequence
Hamming distance [3] computes the number of differing positions when comparing two code words. For the coded output sequence listed in the table above, we can see that the minimum separation between a pair of code words is 3.
If an error of weight occurs, it is possible to transform one code word to another valid code word and the error cannot be detected. So, the number of errors which can be detected is
.
To determine the error correction capability, let us visualize that we can have valid code words from possible
values. If each code word is visualized as a sphere of radius
, then the largest value of
which does not result in overlap between the sphere is,
where,
is the the largest integer in
.
Any code word that lies with in the sphere is decoded into the valid code word at the center of the sphere.
So the error correction capability of code with distance is
.
In our example, as , we can correct up-to 1 error.
Let the received code word be,
, where
and
is the transmit code word,
is the additive white Gaussian noise with mean
and variance
and
form the elements of the code word.
Given that there are known code words, the goal is to find correlation of received vector
with each of the valid code words.
The correlation vector is,
where,
is the received coded sequence of dimension
,
is the matrix of valid code words sequence of dimension
and
is the vector of correlation value for each valid code word and is of dimension
.
From the correlation values, the index of the location where
is maximized corresponds to the maximum likelihood transmit code word.
Note:
The term is to given weights for the code words i.e.0 is given a weight -1, 1 is given a weight 1.
To recap the discussion from the previous post [1], the hard decision decoding is done using parity check matrix .
Let the system model be,
, where
is the received code word of dimension
,
is the raw message bits of dimension
,
is the raw message bits
,
is the error locations of dimension
.
Multiplying the received code word with the parity check matrix,
.
The term is called the syndrome of the error pattern and is of dimension
. As the term
, the syndrome is affected only by the error sequence.
Assuming that the error hits only one bit,
a) There are can be possible error locations.
b) If the syndrome is 0, then it means that there is no errors.
c) The value of syndrome takes one among the valid 7 non-zero values. From the value of syndrome we can figure out which bit in the coded sequence is in error and correct it.
Note :
a) If we have more than one error location, then also the syndrome will fall into one of the 8 valid syndrome sequence and hence cannot be corrected.
b) The chosen Hamming (7,4) coding matrix , the dual code
is,
.
It can be seen that modulo-2 multiplication of the coding matrix with the transpose of the dual code matrix
is all zeros i.e
.
From Chapter 12.2.1 and Chapter 12.2.1 of Digital Communication: Third Edition, by John R. Barry, Edward A. Lee, David G. Messerschmitt [4], the asymptotic coding gain with soft decision decoding and hard decision decoding is given as,
.
where,
is the coding rate,
is the minimum distance between the code words and
is the maximum number of errors which can be corrected.
The Matlab/Octave script performs the following
(a) Generate random binary sequence of 0′s and 1′s.
(b) Group them into four bits, add three parity bits and convert them to 7 coded bits using Hamming (7,4) systematic code
(c) Add White Gaussian Noise
(d) Perform hard decision decoding – compute the error syndrome for groups of 7 bits, correct the single bit errors
(e) Perform soft decision decoding
(f) Count the number of errors for both hard decision and soft decision decoding
(g) Repeat for multiple values of and plot the simulation results.
Click here to download Matlab/Octave script for computing BER for BPSK in Hamming (7,4) code with soft and hard decision decoding [5].
Figure : BER plot for Hamming (7,4) code with soft and hard decision decoding
a) At bit error rate close to , can see that the coding gains corresponding to hard and soft decision decoding is tending towards the asymptotic coding gain numbers.
Digital Communications by John Proakis [6]
Digital Communication: Third Edition, by John R. Barry, Edward A. Lee, David G. Messerschmitt [4]
Article printed from DSP log: http://www.dsplog.com
URL to article: http://www.dsplog.com/2012/03/15/hamming-code-soft-hard-decode/
URLs in this post:
[1] hard decision decoding for a Hamming (7,4) code: http://www.dsplog.com/2009/09/29/hamming-74-code-with-hard-decision-decoding/
[2] Digital Communications by John Proakis: http://www.amazon.chttp://www.dsplog.com/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FDigital-Communications-John-Proakis%2Fdp%2F0072321113&tag=dl04-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
[3] Hamming distance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_distance
[4] Digital Communication: Third Edition, by John R. Barry, Edward A. Lee, David G. Messerschmitt: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FDigital-Communication-John-R-Barry%2Fdp%2F0792375483&tag=dl04-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
[5] download Matlab/Octave script for computing BER for BPSK in Hamming (7,4) code with soft and hard decision decoding: http://www.dsplog.com/db-install/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/script_bpsk_ber_awgn_hamming_7_4_code_soft_hard_decoding.m
[6] Digital Communications by John Proakis: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FDigital-Communications-John-Proakis%2Fdp%2F0072321113&tag=dl04-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
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