Code construction and decoding of parallel concatenated tail-biting codes

Based on the two-dimensional (2-D) weight distribution of tail-biting codes we give guidelines on how to choose tail biting component codes that are especially suited for parallel concatenated coding schemes. Employing these guidelines, we tabulate tail-biting codes of different rate, length, and complexity. The performance of parallel concatenated block codes (PCBCs) using iterative (turbo) decoding is evaluated by simulation and bounds are calculated in order to study their asymptotic performance.