VITERBI DECODER PROCESSING

Viterbi References
Suggestedreferences:
J.G.Proakis andM.Salehi,FundamentalsofCommunication Systems,PrenticeHall,2005.[codingandviterbi] A.J.Viterbi,ErrorBoundsforConvolutionalCodesandan AsymptoticallyOptimumDecodingAlgorithm, IEEETrans. onInformationTheory, April1967. G.D.Forney,MaximumLikelihoodSequenceEstimation ofDigitalSequencesinthePresenceofIntersymbol Interference, IEEETrans.onInformationTheory, May1972. H.L.Lou,ImplementingtheViterbiAlgorithm, IEEE SignalProcessingMagazine, Sept.1995. P.J.Black,AlgorithmsandArchitecturesforHighSpeed ViterbiDecoding, Ph.D.dissertation,March1993.

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Viterbi Algorithm
Widelyusedincommunicationsystemstodecodea datasequencethathasbeenencodedbyafinite state process
Ex:ethernetreceiver Ex:harddiskreadelectronics

AverycommondemandingDSPtask
Ex:viterbibuildingblocksareineveryseriousDSP benchmarkingsuite Ex:TheTexasInstrumentsC64xDSPprocessorhasa dedicatedonchipviterbidecoder.Theviterbi decoderand aturbodecoder occupyabout8%ofthechipsarea

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Viterbi Algorithm
Involvescodingdata,addingnoise,anddecoding
Deliberateencoding:convolutionalortrelliscodes Unintentionalencoding:intersymbolinterference

Outputisanestimate oftheoriginaldata Viterbialgorithmisoptimalinthemaximum likelihoodsenseitfindstheinputthatismost likely,giventheobservedchanneloutput

noise data input coding + decoder data estimate

channel
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Convolutional Coding Example

Encodingisaprocesswhichaddsredundancytodatatoreduce theprobabilityoferrorsorincreasethelevelofacceptablenoise inthechannel Theconstraintlength(commonlycalledk)isameasureofthe complexityofthecode
Ex:k=7 2k1 states=26 states=64states(inWiFi) Ex:k=9 256states(achallengingdesign)

Ex:a4state,Rate= convolutionalencoder
inputdataxn encodedsymbolsy1 andy2 y1,n =xn XOR xn1XOR xn2 y2,n =xnXOR xn2 Twodatabitsoutputbydecoderforeachinputbit(rate=) Doublerate outputbitstypicallysentseriallyintoonechannel

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Convolutional Coding Example

Presentstate: Nextstate: xn2 xn1
XOR

xn1 xn (input)
y1,n

xn

xn-1
XOR

xn-2 y2,n
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Convolutional Coding Example

8entrytruthtable
inputs:threexs outputs:twoys

xn,xn1,xn2 000 001 010 011 100 101 110 111

y1,n 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1

y2,n 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0
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Convolutional Coding Example

Eachstatecantransitiontoonly2otherstates
Thesetwostatesarereachedbyeitherxn =0or1

Nextstatefoundby:

xn1

xn (input)

01

xn / y2,n, y1,n xn-2 ,xn-1

0/00

1/11 0/10 00 1/00 0/11 10

1/10

11

1/10

0/01
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Trellis
Thetrellis isatimeindexed versionofthestatediagram Eachstatetransition(inputbit intotheencoder)corresponds toaforwardstepinthetrellis
State 00 01 10 11 time: n n+1 00 01 10 11

01

01

00

11

00

11

10

10

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Trellis
Givenastartingstate,everypossibleinputsequence correspondstoauniquepaththroughthetrellis Example:
Inputxn =0,1,1,0 Output ={0,0},{1,1}, {1,0},{1,0} State 00 01 10 11 0/00
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1/11

1/10

0/10
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Viterbi Decoding
Viterbidecodercalculatesasemibruteforceestimateofthe likelihoodforeachpaththroughthetrellis Keypoint:Oncetheestimatesforallstatesinastep/iteration of thetrellishavebeencalculated,theprobabilitiesforall previoussteps/iterationscanbediscarded;onlythemostlikely entrytoastateneedberemembered Fourbasicsteps
1. Calculatethetrellis
a) Weightthetrellisbranchesbycalculatingbranchmetrics b) Computetheminimumweightpathtotimen+1intermsofthe minimumweightpathtotimen.Retainstepdecisions.Usesadd compareselect(ACS) algorithm.

2. Findthelaststateoftheminimumweightpath. 3. Findtheentireminimumweightpath.Alsocalledsurvivorpath decodeortraceback. 4. Reorderbitsintocorrectforwardordering.

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1. Calculating the Trellis

Eachbranchisassignedaweight,calledabranchmetric Thebranchmetricisameasureofthelikelihoodofthe transitiongiventhenoisyobservations Likelihoodofatransitionisgivenbyanappropriatemeasureof thedistance betweenanidealencoderoutputandtheactual receivedsignal Morelikelytransitionsreceivesmaller weights Example:
Receive:{0.13,0.86} Branchwith{0,0}outputsreceivesalowerprobability(larger weight)thanthe{0,1}branch

Goalistofindtheminimumweightpath(oftencalledshortest path)throughthetrellis

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1b) ACS
Goalistofindthemostlikelyentrypathintoastate ADDpreviousstatemetrictocurrentbranchmetric
forfirstbranch forsecondbranch

COMPAREwhichincomingbranchproducesthe lowermetric(higherprobability) SELECTtheminimumandsavethebranch FullyparallelviterbidecodersusemanyACS datapathstocalculateanentiretrellisstateupdatein onecycle

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ACS Hardware
Branch metric Decision bit

Compare

Select (mux)

Previous state metric 0

New state metric

Previous state metric 1

Branch metric
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2. Finding The Most Likely Path

Afteralldatahavebeenprocessed,wemustfindthe mostlikelypaththroughthetrellis Donebysearchingthroughthefinalcolumn of statesandselectingthemostlikely(lowestweight) Operationdoneinfrequentlycomparedtoother calculations

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3. Traceback
Thegoalistoreadoutthebestestimateforall decodedbits Theprocessbeginsatthemostlikelystateandit followsthisprocedureforeachstateinthetrellis
1) ReadstoreddecisionbitfromACS 2) Outputthisdecodedbit 3) Usethedecisionbittocalculatethepreviousstateinthe trellis 4) <repeat>

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4. Reorder Output Bits

Bitsoutputfromthetraceback operationarein reverseorder(lastbitoutcorrespondstofirst received) Needlogicandmemorytobufferandreverseorder Fundamentaltothealgorithm,cannotbeavoided Summary
Viterbiisdataandmemoryintensive
Forward ACS Reverse traceback Forward reordering

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