Iterative Joint Source Channel Decoding of Error Correction Arithmetic Codes

Binary arithmetic codes with forbidden symbols (named error correction arithmetic codes: ECAC) can be modeled as finite state machines and treated as variable length trellis codes. In this paper, a novel iterative joint source channel decoding algorithm is proposed for decoding trellis based error correction arithmetic codes. Unlike the conventional iterative decoding algorithm, it is needless to use the additional check codes such as CRC during the encoding, the proposed algorithm utilizes the Monte Carlo methods to detect the error bit directly. Furthermore, the outer error detector can not only detect the error bits but also provide the probability of the error location to the inner error corrector so as to accelerate the decoding process. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has some significant performance improvements over some conventional decoding algorithms in terms of the symbol error rate, while the increased computational complexity can be accepted.