Claude Berrou (; born 23 September 1951 in

Penmarch Penmarch (, ) is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany, northwestern France.electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

, now

IMT Atlantique IMT Atlantique Bretagne Pays de la Loire (also known as École Nationale Supérieure Mines-Télécom Atlantique Bretagne-Pays de la Loire or École des Mines Télécom Atlantique) is a technological university (French grande école), which was cre ...

. He is the sole inventor of a groundbreaking quasi-optimal error-correcting coding scheme called

Turbo code In information theory, turbo codes (originally in French ''Turbocodes'') are a class of high-performance forward error correction (FEC) codes developed around 1990–91, but first published in 1993. They were the first practical codes to closely ...

s 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 a
US Patent 5,446,747
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 Because the 1993 paper was the first public introduction of turbo codes (patents remain unpublished until issued), coinventorship credit for the discovery to turbo code is often erroneously given to Glavieux and/or Thitimajshima.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 (see

turbo equalizer In digital communications, a turbo equalizer is a type of receiver used to receive a message corrupted by a communication channel with intersymbol interference (ISI). It approaches the performance of a maximum a posteriori (MAP) receiver via iterat ...

.) 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 (Long Term Evolution) cellular protocol. They are also used in the Inmarsat satellite communications protocol and well as the

DVB-RCS DVB-RCS is an acronym for Digital Video Broadcasting - Return Channel via Satellite or (''Return channel over system''). It is a specification for an interactive on-demand multimedia satellite communication system formulated in 1999 by the DVB conso ...

and DVB-RCS2 communications protocols.

Hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

s 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. 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 the Turbo-decoding has been recognized as a new instance of the very general principle of

Belief propagation A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take i ...

; one application of this principle has been invented for the decoding of

Low-density parity-check code In information theory, a low-density parity-check (LDPC) code is a linear error correcting code, a method of transmitting a message over a noisy transmission channel. An LDPC code is constructed using a sparse Tanner graph (subclass of the bipa ...

s (LDPC codes also known as ''Gallager codes'', in honor of

Robert G. Gallager Robert Gray Gallager (born May 29, 1931) is an American electrical engineer known for his work on information theory and communications networks. Gallager was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 1979 for contributio ...

, who developed the LDPC concept in his doctoral dissertation at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

in 1960 as a theoretical model whose practical implementation was not widely developed until recently). The ''Turbo'' principle is generalized now by Claude Berrou and his lab team for the processing of various functions such as the

demodulation Demodulation is extracting the original information-bearing signal from a carrier wave. A demodulator is an electronic circuit (or computer program in a software-defined radio) that is used to recover the information content from the modulated ...

, the detection or the equalization using a network of multiple

convolution code In telecommunication, a convolutional code is a type of error-correcting code that generates parity symbols via the sliding application of a boolean polynomial function to a data stream. The sliding application represents the 'convolution' of the ...

s working in parallel with probabilistic feedback. Other subjects of interest include all their possible applications in the field of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

, for example with a better understanding of natural biological thinking and memory for the implementation of such model using

neural network A neural network is a network or circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up of biological ...

s for the processing of pulsed signals with software and hardware methods with auto-selected and self-maintained combinations of activation cycles of adjacent neurons.La pensée artificielle (The Artificial Thinking), research project paper by Claude Berrou, ENST Bretagne (2008).

Publications

He is the author or coauthor of several books related to turbocodes and their encoding/decoding methods or implementation devices: * ''Codes et turbocodes'' (Codes and 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 (2007), 397 p. (Iris), . * ''Codage de canal — des bases théoriques aux turbocodes'' (Channel encoding — from theoretical grounds to 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 (2005), 453 p. (''Traité IC2 : Traitement du signal et de l’image''), . 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 correcteurs d’erreurs pseudo-systématique, procédé de décodage et dispositifs correspondants'' (Apparatus of pseudo-systematic error-correcting convolutive coding, associated decoding process and devices) by Claude Berrou and Patrick Adde ( Institut TELECOM;

Telecom Bretagne Telecom may refer to: * Telecommunications ** A telephone company (or ''telecommunications service provider'') ** The telecommunications industry * Telecom Animation Film, a Japanese studio See also * Telcom (disambiguation) * Telekom (disambi ...

;

France Telecom Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...

& TDF), France, April 1991. * ''Procédé de décodage d’un code convolutif à maximum de vraisemblance et pondération des décisions et décodeur correspondant'' (Apparatus of decoding for a convolutive code with maximum likelihood and weighted decisions, and associated decoder) by Claude Berrou (Institut TELECOM; Telecom Bretagne), France, April 1992. * ''Procédé de codage correcteurs d’erreurs à au moins deux codages convolutifs systématiques en parallèle, procédé de décodage itératif, module de décodage et décodeur correspondants'' (Apparatus of error-detecting encoding using at least two systematic convolutive encodings in parallel, process of iterative decoding, and associated decoding module and decoder) by Claude Berrou (Institut TELECOM; Telecom Bretagne; France Telecom & TDF), France, April 1992. * ''Décodage itératif de codes produits'' (Iterative decoding of product codes) by Ramesh Pyndiah, Alain Glavieux and Claude Berrou (Institut TELECOM; Telecom Bretagne; France Telecom), France, November 1993. * ''Dispositif de réception de signaux numériques à structure itérative, module et procédé correspondants'' (Numeric signals device with iterative structure, associated module and process), by Catherine Douillard, Alain Glavieux, Michel Jezequel and Claude Berrou (Institut TELECOM; Telecom Bretagne; France Telecom & TDF), France, February 1995. * ''Procédé et dispositif de codage convolutif de blocs de données et procédé et dispositif de décodage correspondants'' (Apparatus and devices for the convolutive encoding of data blocks, and associated process and decoding device) by Claude Berrou and Michel Jezequel (Institut TELECOM; Telecom Bretagne; France Telecom et TDF), 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'' (Apparatus and device for the encoding with at least two parallel encoders and enhanced permutation, and associated process and decoding device) by Claude Berrou and Alain Glavieux (Institut TELECOM; Telecom Bretagne;

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), France, July 1999. * ''Procédé de qualification de codes correcteurs d’erreurs, procédé d’optimisation, codeur, décodeur et application correspondants'' (Apparatus for the qualification of error-correcting codes, and associated optimization process, encoder, decoder and application) by Claude Berrou, Michel Jezequel and Catherine Douillard (Institut TELECOM; Telecom Bretagne; France Telecom & GET), France September 2001.

Distinctions

He has received several distinctions:See Claude Berrou's personal biography page on the ENST Bretagne web site (external link below). * the SEE Ampère Medal (1997). * the Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation of

IEEE Information Theory Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

(1998), together with Alain Glavieux and Punya Thitimajshima. * the

IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal The IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal is presented annually to up to three persons, for outstanding achievements in information sciences, information systems and information technology. The recipients receive a gold medal, together with a replica in ...

(2003), together with Alain Glavieux. * the French Grand Prix

France Télécom Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 5 ...

Académie des sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the ...

(2005). * the Marconi Prize (2005). He was nominated for the European Inventor of the Year Award (2006). He was elected a member of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...

in 2007.

Notes

External links

Claude Berrou's personal biography page
on the ENST Bretagne web site. {{DEFAULTSORT:Berrou, Claude 1951 births Living people French information theorists Members of the French Academy of Sciences French telecommunications engineers French electrical engineers Electrical engineering academics