Claude Berrou


Claude Berrou is a French professor in electrical engineering at École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne, now IMT Atlantique. He is the sole inventor of a groundbreaking quasi-optimal error-correcting coding scheme called turbo codes as evidenced by the sole inventorship credit given on the fundamental patent for turbo codes. The original patent filing for turbo codes issued in the US as .
A 1993 paper entitled "Near Shannon Limit Error-correcting Coding and Decoding: Turbo-codes" published in the Proceedings of IEEE International Communications Conference was the first public disclosure of turbo codes. This 1993 paper listed three authors because it was formed from three separate submissions that were combined due to space constraints. The three authors listed on the 1993 paper are: Berrou, Glavieux, and Thitimajshima. Because the 1993 paper was the first public introduction of turbo codes, coinventorship credit for the discovery to turbo code is often erroneously given to Glavieux and/or Thitimajshima. While Berrou and Glavieux did go on to do supplemental work together, the original development of turbo codes was performed by Berrou alone.
Berrou also codeveloped turbo equalization Turbo equalization is also known as iterative reception or iterative detection.
Turbo codes have been used in all the major cellular communications standards since 3G and are currently part of the LTE cellular protocol. They are also used in the Inmarsat satellite communications protocol and well as the DVB-RCS and DVB-RCS2 communications protocols.
Hard disk drives started using turbo equalization for their read channel in 2008. By 2012 all hard disk drives used turbo equalization and this remains the case to this day.
In 2009, he was elected as an IEEE fellow for invention of turbo codes, generalization of the turbo principle in receivers, and influence in standardization.
Between mobile phones and hard disk drives, several billion devices have incorporated key technology developed by Claude Berrou.

Key research activities

His current research activities are now concentrated on the application and extension of the turbo technology in various domains, including his research on artificial thinking, because turbo decoding has been recognized as a new instance of the very general principle of belief propagation; one application of this principle has been invented for the decoding of low-density parity-check codes. The turbo principle is generalized now by Claude Berrou and his lab team for the processing of various functions such as the demodulation, the detection or the equalization using a network of multiple convolution codes working in parallel with probabilistic feedback.
Other subjects of interest include all their possible applications in the field of artificial intelligence, for example with a better understanding of natural biological thinking and memory for the implementation of such model using neural networks for the processing of pulsed signals with software and hardware methods with auto-selected and self-maintained combinations of activation cycles of adjacent neurons.

Publications

He is the author or coauthor of several books related to turbocodes and their encoding/decoding methods or implementation devices:
  • Codes et turbocodes by Claude Berrou with Karine Amis Cavalec, Alain Glavieux, Matthieu Arzel, Michel Jezequel, Charlotte Langlais, Raphaël Le Bidan, Samir Saoudi, Gérard Battail, Emmanuel Boutillon, Yannick Saouter, Emeric Maury, Christophe Laot, Sylvie Kerouedan, Frédéric Guilloud, and Catherine Douillard. Paris: Springer, 397 p.,.
  • Codage de canal — des bases théoriques aux turbocodes by Alain Glavieux with Patrick Adde, Gérard Battail, Ezio Biglieri, Michel Jezequel, Alain Poli, Sandrine Vaton, Ramesh Pyndiah, Annie Picart, Catherine Douillard, and Claude Berrou. Paris: Hermès Science / Lavoisier, 453 p.,.
He wrote many chapters in various books related to turbocodes in US publications, published several articles in various international research magazines with scientific review committees, and made many communications in international conferences with review committees.
During his work on turbocodes and parallel convolutive encoding and decoding, he has authored several registered patents for methods and devices implementing this technology:
  • Procédé de codage convolutif correcteur d’erreurs pseudo-systématique, procédé de décodage et dispositifs correspondants by Claude Berrou and Patrick Adde, France, April 1991.
  • Procédé de décodage d’un code convolutif à maximum de vraisemblance et pondération des décisions et décodeur correspondant by Claude Berrou, France, April 1992.
  • Procédé de codage correcteur d’erreurs à au moins deux codages convolutifs systématiques en parallèle, procédé de décodage itératif, module de décodage et décodeur correspondants by Claude Berrou, France, April 1992.
  • Décodage itératif de codes produits by Ramesh Pyndiah, Alain Glavieux and Claude Berrou, France, November 1993.
  • Dispositif de réception de signaux numériques à structure itérative, module et procédé correspondants, by Catherine Douillard, Alain Glavieux, Michel Jezequel and Claude Berrou, France, February 1995.
  • Procédé et dispositif de codage convolutif de blocs de données et procédé et dispositif de décodage correspondants by Claude Berrou and Michel Jezequel, France, April 1996.
  • Procédé et dispositif de codage à au moins deux codages en parallèle et permutation améliorée, et procédé et dispositif de décodage correspondants by Claude Berrou and Alain Glavieux, France, July 1999.
  • Procédé de qualification de codes correcteurs d’erreurs, procédé d’optimisation, codeur, décodeur et application correspondants by Claude Berrou, Michel Jezequel and Catherine Douillard, France September 2001.

    Distinctions

He has received several distinctions:
He was nominated for the European Inventor of the Year Award.
He was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 2007.