Iterative Decoding of Reed-Solomon Codes based

on Non-binary Matrices

V. B. Wijekoon, Hoang Dau & Emanuele Viterbo

Monash University, Australia

Introduction Assuming the sub-matrix is singular, and substituting from (1);

n−k−2 n−k−2 n−k−2 n−k−2

Reed-Solomon (RS) codes are a class of error-correcting codes that are widely used in modern com- Y
j (1) Y
j (2) Y
j (2) Y
j (1)
(α − zi )
1 (α − zi ) −
2 (α − zi )
1 (α − zi ) = 0
2 (3)
munication and storage systems, especially due to the excellent distance properties they posses as
i=0 i=0 i=0 i=0
maximum distance separable (MDS) codes. In a majority of the applications where RS codes are used,
they are decoded via the popular Berlekamp-Massey (BM) algorithm, an algebraic hard-decision de- Since c1 and c2 share (n − k − 2) zeros, above simplifies to;
coding (HDD) method.
Although BM algorithm is very efficient, it is unable to utilize soft information, which may be avail- (1) (2)
(αj1 − αj2 )(zu − zu ) = 0 (4)
able in many applications. It is believed that soft-decision decoding (SDD) has the potential to reach
performance gains in excess of 2dB over HDD. First attempt to realize these gains with RS codes which can only be satisfied if j1 = j2.
was the Koetter-Vardy (KV) algorithm [1], an algebraic SDD method. Although KV algorithm gains
substantially over the BM algorithm, its high decoding complexity has so far prohibited practical
usage. Results
Iterative decoding algorithms such as belief propagation (BP), made popular by LDPC codes, offer
an interesting approach for SDD. Adaptive belief propagation (ABP) is the first such approach pro- We consider two types of matrices for iterative decoding of RS codes.
posed for RS codes [2]. It considers the binary image of RS parity-check matrix (PCM) for iterative • Type-A: Out of matrices with lowest number of short cycles, the matrix with least length 4 and 6
decoding. ABP and its subsequent improvements/modifications offer significant gains over HDD. cycles not satisfying the FRC (subsection I of previous section)
But in order to achieve those gains, these algorithms have to overcome the issue of short cycles in the
PCM, of which there are many. The issue is resolved through changing the PCM per iteration, using • Type-B: Out of matrices with zero 4-cycles not satisfying the FRC, one with the least such 6-cycles
Gaussian operations, which incurs a heavy complexity cost. (subsection II of previous section)
When it comes to iterative decoding of non-binary codes, effects of short cycles are related to the To improve performance further, we use a damping coefficient in QSPA, for the estimates of check
properties of the corresponding sub-matrices [3]. When this sub-matrix is singular, effects of the cy- nodes, which has to be optimized per PCM. Performance of the decoding scheme for (15,11) RS code
cle become more prominent, especially at lower error rates. These are popularly known as cycles that and (31,27) RS code, are given below, along with that of popular decoding algorithms of RS codes.
do not satisfy the full-rank condition (FRC) [4]. Maximum iterations of QSPA was set to 20.
We consider using Q-ary message passing for SDD of RS codes, by constructing an alternative non-
binary PCM that is more suited for iterative decoding. Such a matrix is constructed by considering
only the lowest weight codewords of the dual code, thereby reducing the number of short cycles.
Then, in order to improve performance further, we attempt to reduce the number of cycles that do
not satisfy the FRC. A condition for existence of such cycles are derived using algebraic properties
of RS codes, and two types of constructions are presented which lead to suitable matrices. Decoding
scheme simply consists of using QSPA on a constructed PCM.

Construction of Suitable Matrices

I. Limit Short Cycles
In order to limit the number of short cycles, we only consider matrices made of minimum-weight
codewords of the dual code. For the (n, k) RS code, dual code is the (n, n − k) RS code, and follow-
ing properties hold for its minimum-weight codewords. Figure 1: FER Performance with Different RS Codes

Property 1: A codeword can contain at most (n − k − 1) zeros.
Property 2: There exist codewords with zeros at any (n − k − 1) given positions.
From above properties it is clear that the PCM can have at most (n − k) × (n − k − 1) zeros. Apart
from the number of zeros, there relative positions also affect the count of short cycles. A possible
approach to limit the number of short cycles consists of following steps.
Both Type-A and Type-B matrices perform at the same level, with gains around 1.5dB over HDD.
They are able to outperform the KV algorithm, but has a gap of around 1dB with ABP. Complexity-
wise, the new scheme is of lower complexity than both KV and ABP algorithms.
Although maximum number of iterations in QSPA was set to 20, it was observed that the algorithm
converges very fast, with a much lesser mean convergence, and a very small standard deviation.

1. Construct a (n − k) × n matrix with a constant row weight of (k + 1), using a suitable LDPC Conclusions
construction method
2. For the RS PCM, pick dual codewords with zeros at exact same positions as in the LDPC matrix. • Proposed scheme offers gains in excess of 1dB over hard decoding of high rate RS codes.
• It is much less complex than existing SDD methods for RS codes.
II. Limit Cycles not satisfying FRC • Since decoding scheme simply consists of using QSPA on a suitably constructed PCM, it is well
suited for hardware implementations.
It is well known that detrimental effects of cycles get worse as the length of the cycles decrease.
• Performance gains are not attractive for low rate RS codes. How to modify the scheme for such
This holds with cycles that do not satisfy the FRC as well. Therefore, we concentrate on reducing
codes should be further investigated.
such cycles of length 4 and 6. Following lemma establishes a condition for existence of cycles not
satisfying FRC between two minimum-weight dual codewords.

Lemma: If two minimum-weight dual codewords share (n − k − 2) zeors out of the (n − k − 1), References
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