Encoding and Interleaving

of Information Signal
in
GSM
Introduction

By

Rama Manohar
 Objective
To give an insight in to the various
steps and operations involved in the
information transfer in GSM
networks .
 Topics for discussion
• Speech Encoding
• Data Encoding
• Interleaving for Voice,Control and Data
signals
 Speech Encoding
• We shall start with a raw voice signal fed
into the microphone, travel through the
various stages involving vocoding, channel
coding etc till it reaches the final burst
format on the Air Interface.
 Speech Encoding ckt

Raw
Voice Voice Channel
interleaving
signal Encoding coding

RF Modulation
 Speech Encoding ckt
• The voice is sampled at the rate of 50
samples per second.
• This results in 20 msec blocks of speech
• Each of this 20 msec block is passed on to
the 13Kbps vocoder.
• There are 260 information bits from the
output of the vocoder for every 20 msec
input i.e.; 13Kbps *20msec = 260 bits.
 Voice Encoding ckt

Vocoder I/p
13Kbps Vocoder Vocoder O/p
20 msec speech
260 bits
blocks
 Channel coding
• Channel Coding is done to protect the
logical channels from transmission errors
introduced by the radio path.
• The coding schemes depend on the type of
the logical channels, hence the coding can
differ from speech, control and data .
 Channel Coding for speech
260 bits
Class class 1b class 2
1a

50 3 132 4 tail
Bits parity bits

Convolutional coder
½ coder, k=5

456 bits=378 bits from Convolution coder + 78 class 2 bits

 Channel coding for Speech
• The 260 bits of speech info from the vocoder is
broken down into three parts.
• Class 1a- 50 bits , these represent the filter
coefficients of the speech and are the most
important for proper detection of the speech at the
receiver and hence are given maximum protection.
3 additional parity bits are derived from the class
1a bits for cyclic redundancy check (CRC).
 Channel coding for Speech
cont’d
• Class 1b - 132 bits are not parity checked
but are fed into the convolutional coder
along with 4 tail bits which are used to set
the registers in the receiver to a known state
for decoding purpose.
• Class 1b- 78 bits, these are not so important
and are not protected but are combined with
the output of the convolution coder.
 Convolutional coder CC
• The Convolutional coder is a series of shift registers
implemented using logic gates, where for every one
input bit we get 2 output bits. Hence it is called ½
coder.
• Here k=5 is the constraint length, it means there are
5 shift register and each bit has memory depth of 4 ,
meaning it can influence the output of up to four
next successive bits. This is useful during reception
as bits can be derived even if a few consecutive bits
are lost due to errors or corruption.
 ½ Convolutional coder C0
output
+

0110..
R1 R2 R3 R4 R5
Input bits

EX-OR C1
+
R=register output
 Convolutional coder cont’d
• The output of the CC* is now 378 bits.
(50+3+132+4)*2=378
The total number of bits now is 378+78=456 bits.
*Note : The bit rate from the vocoder was 13Kbps
for the 20 msec speech block, but after CC the bit
rate increases to 22.8Kbps.
456 bits *20msecs=22.8Kbps
* CC = Convolutional Coder.
 Control Channel Coding
184 bits
Control data

184 40 4 tail
Fire coded parity bits

½ Convolutional Coder
456 bits output
 Control Channel Coding
• The control information is received in blocks of 184
bits.
• These bits are first protected with a cyclic code
called as Fire code, which is useful in correction and
detection of burst errors.
• 40 Parity bits are added, along with 4 tail bits.
• These 228 bits are given to the CC whose output is
again 456 bits at a bitrate of 22.8Kbps.
• The control channels include the RACH, PCH,
AGCH etc.
Data Channel Coding
240 bits 4 tail
Data bits

½ Convolutional Coder
Output= 488 bits

After Puncturing
Output=456 bits
 Data Channel Coding
• The data bits are received in blocks of 240 bits.
These are directly convolution coded after adding
4 tail bits.
• The output of the CC is now 488 bits, which
actually increases the bitrate to 24.4 Kbps.
• To keep the bitrate constant on the air interface we
need to puncture the output of the CC. Hence, we
have a final bitrate of 22.8 Kbps again .
 Channel Coding cont’d
• The above explanation was given keeping
in view a full rate Traffic, Control, or Data
channel.
• For Half rate or Lesser rates the same
principle of channel coding holds good,
with slight differences in the encoding
process.
 Interleaving
• Having encoded the logical channel information,
the next step is to build its bit stream into bursts
that can be transmitted within the TDMA frame
structure. This is the stage where the interleaving
process is carried out.
• Interleaving spreads the content of one
information block across several TDMA timeslots
or bursts.
 Interleaving cont’d
• The following interleaving depths are used :
• Speech – 8 blocks
• Control – 4 blocks
• Data – 22 blocks
• The interleaving process for a speech block is shown
wherein which a 456 bit speech block is divided into
8 blocks of 57 bits each and each of these odd and
even 57 bit blocks are interleaved diagonally on to
alternate bursts on the TDMA frame.
 Speech Interleaving
456 bit speech data
Speech block 8* 57 bits each = 456 bits
N-1 Of Speech block N

57 57 57 57
T+F odd T+F odd Even T+F Even
Of N-1 Of N Of N-1 Of N

The speech is spread over 8 such normal bursts

Each normal burst consists of two blocks of 57 bit speech
from different 20msec blocks (say N, N-1) along with
26 bit training sequence T and 2 flag F plus 6 start stop bits .
 Control Data Interleaving
456 bits control data
114 114 114 114

TDMA
Burst blocks

The control data is spread over 4 blocks using rectangular

interleaving instead of diagonal interleaving as in
speech the receiver will have to wait for at least
2 multiframes before being able to decode the control
message
 Data Interleaving
456 bit data block

114 114 114 114

First 6 First 6
bits bits
Last 6 Last 6
bits bits

Burst 1 Burst 2 Burst 3 Burst 4 Burst 19 Burst 22

 Data Interleaving cont’d
• Here the data block of 456 bits is divided into 4
blocks of 114 bits each.
• The first 6 bits from each of the 114 bit blocks is
inserted in to each frame, the second 6 bits from
each of the 114 bits into the next frame and so on
spreading each 114 block over 19 TDMA bursts
while the entire 456 bits is spread over 22 TDMA
bursts.
• Thus the data interleaving is said to have a depth
of 22 bursts.
 Data Interleaving cont’d
• The reason why data is spread over such along period
of time is that if data burst is corrupted or lost, only a
small part of it is lost which can be reproduced at the
receiver.
• This wide interleaving depth does produce a time delay
during transmission but that is acceptable since it does
not affect the data signal quality at the receiver, unlike
speech where delay could result in bad quality of signal
to the subscriber.
• *Note – The interleaving used in data is diagonal
interleaving.
 Interleaving Advantage
Before Deinterleaving
3 successive bursts corrupted

After Deinterleaving
The corrupted bursts are spread over a length equal to the
interleaving depth so that the effect of the errors is
minimized.
 Air Interface Bitrate
• The information which is now coded and
interleaved at 22.8 Kbps now has to be transmitted
over the Air interface to the BTS.
• The information burst is not sent directly , but is
sent in ciphered form within a burst envelope.
This ciphering is done using ciphering keys and
algorithms known both by the mobile and the
BSS.
 Air Interface Bitrate cont’d
• The Kc is the ciphering key and A5
algorithm are applied to the
information(speech or data) which increases
the bitrate to a final rate of 33.8 Kbps
from/to each mobile.
• If we assume all 8 timeslots of the cell to be
occupied then the bitrate of the Air interface
comes to 33.8 * 8= 270.4 Kbps/channel.
Air Interface Bitrate cont’d
Kc Information
Block 22.8 Kbps

A5 Algorithm

Sent on Air interface

Ciphered information burst
33.8 Kbps
Air Interface Bitrate cont’d
TDMA Fn TDMA Fn+1
Cell rx’s 8*33.8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KBps = 270.4 Kbps
Per TDMA frame

Mobile
Tx’s at
Cell coverage area 33.8 Kbps
 Decoding and Deinterleaving at
the Receiver
• At the receiver the reverse process of
Deinterleaving and decoding have to take place
respectively, so as to recover the information from
the signal.
• After Deinterleaving the signal will be decoded
which is the reverse process of the Convolutional
coding, using Viterbi decoders.
• The decoder can recover lost or corrupted data up
to 4 successive bits, because the memory depth of
the CC is 4(for k=5).