The need for separate CRC bits is eliminated by taking advantage of what
has been determined to be an embedded error detection capability of the
tail bits generated by the constituent encoders of a turbo coder to
perform error detection following turbo decoding. Specifically, it has
been recognized that the tail bits are similar to CRC bits that would be
generated by a CRC encoder that uses as its generating polynomial the
feedback polynomial used by the turbo encoder. At the turbo decoder,
after a final turbo decoding iteration cycle, a check is performed on the
decoded systematic information bits by calculating the tail bits from the
decoded information bits using that generating polynomial and bit-by-bit
comparing the calculated tail bits with the systematic tail bits decoded
by the turbo decoder. If a mismatch occurs at one or more bit positions,
an error is indicated.