Turbo-Equalization Using Partial Gaussian Approximation

Abstract: This paper deals with turbo-equalization for coded data transmission over intersymbol interference (ISI) channels. We propose a message-passing algorithm that uses the expectation-propagation rule to convert messages passed from the demodulator-decoder to the equalizer and computes messages returned by the equalizer by using a partial Gaussian approximation (PGA). Results from Monte Carlo simulations show that this approach leads to a significant performance improvement compared to state-of-the-art turbo-equalizers and allows for trading performance with complexity. We exploit the specific structure of the ISI channel model to significantly reduce the complexity of the PGA compared to that considered in the initial paper proposing the method.