Error performances of multi shift-register convolutional self-doubly-orthogonal codes

A class of orthogonal convolutional codes using a multi shift-register encoder and featuring self-doubly-orthogonal properties is analyzed under iterative decoding. The lower bounds of error performances of these codes can be approached within typically three to five iterations at moderate signal-to-noise ratios using either iterative threshold (TH) decoding or belief propagation (BP) decoding. Compared with iterative BP decoding, it is shown that iterative threshold decoding for these codes yields a much lower complexity at the same decoding latency.