Concatenated Codes (Research Monograph) [Paperback]

G. David Forney (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (December 15, 1966)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262060159
• ISBN-13: 978-0262060158
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,932,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Definately a collectable, December 15, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Concatenated Codes (Research Monograph) (Paperback)

If you are interested in collecting all of the obscure books on information theory, this is a must purchase. Forney, the inventor of "concatenated codes," first published in his MIT PhD Thesis and subsequent monograph represents one of the most important works in all of coding theory. Concatenated codes continute to remain the "gold standard" for coding systems (even though we now have Turbo codes and modified LDPC which are still not widely deployed for commercial useage.)

Concatenated codes were the first codes which allowed communication systems to closely approach channel capacity. They were quickly adopted by NASA and JPL for use in interplanetary and interstellar space probes, replacing the more primitive RS and RM block, and Golay codes. We continue to use Forney's Concatenated codes for deep-space communications even today, and only recently has NASA and CCSDS proposed new Turbo codes to finally supercede the Forney codes.

Forney's monograph is fairly well written, albeit the chapters seem somewhat out of order. Also it doesn't deal with the type of concatenated codes we customarily deal with (i.e. Block and convolution). It focuses on block codes. At the time the book was written, the properties of convolution codes still were not widely understood, and would not be so until around 1970, when Viterbi, Forney and others wrote some good papers on the subject.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great addition to coding theory library., February 25, 2003

By 

"s_alan_hoffman" (L.I., NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Concatenated Codes (Research Monograph) (Paperback)

Concatenated codes are channel codes which combine either two block codes, or a block code and a convolution code in an outer-inner layer configuration. Such codes were part of the modern revolution which occured in the last 3 decades, and as another reviewer pointed out... concatenated codes have become the "Gold Standard" and are used on sattelites and for deep space telemetry and many other applications. They're ability to approach the shannon limit so easily with only modest decoding complexity by todays standards has been their success. Only having recently been surpassed by Turbo Codes and some of the new types of modified LDPC Gallager codes, they still pose as a potent weapon in the error correction arsenal.

Forney's monographs, unfortunately, I take 1 star off of my rating because while Forney is fairly lucid and one of the better writers... the book seemed slightly disorganized, and his general treatment of the subject was to be honest... slightly confusing if not quite inadequate giving the monumental importance of the subject. Too much theory, and not enough practical coverage as to the potential significance of his codes (i.e. what is their true advantage and how do we easily calculate that, etc...) I say this in hindsight of course. Coding theory was itself at the time somewhat still in it's less mature years.. although it was just starting to edge towards the modern era. The absence of convolution codes in the book just serves that point well.. because the properties of convolution codes were not well known at the time of this book; not until a few years later. I don't think Forney had any idea how astounding his concatenated codes idea would be, and so that might account for the general lack of motivating coverage in this book. He didn't realize the significance and popularity of this new coding system, else I think the author might have written a more clear and explanatory monograph.

Also see Robert Gallagers MIT monograph of the same era on Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes. This was another masterpiece monograph which raised the bar in coding theory by several orders of magnitude.