This paper presents new FEC codes for the erasure channel, LDPC-Band, that have been designed so as to optimize a hybrid iterative-Maximum Likelihood (ML) decoding. Indeed, these codes feature simultaneously a sparse parity check matrix, which allows an efficient use of iterative LDPC decoding, and a generator matrix with a band structure, which allows fast ML decoding on the erasure channel. The combination of these two decoding algorithms leads to erasure codes achieving a very good trade-off between complexity and erasure correction capability.
This paper studies the decoding capabilities of maximum distance profile (MDP) convolutional codes over the erasure channel and compares them with the decoding capabilities of MDS block codes over the same channel. The erasure channel involving large alphabets is an important practical channel model when studying packet transmissions over a network, e.g, the Internet.
Recent work have shown that Reed-Muller (RM) codes achieve the erasure channel capacity. However, this performance is obtained with maximum-likelihood decoding which can be costly for practical applications. In this paper, we propose an encoding/decoding scheme for Reed-Muller codes on the packet erasure channel based on Plotkin construction. We present several improvements over the generic decoding. They allow, for a light cost, to compete with maximum-likelihood decoding performance, especially on high-rate codes, while significantly outperforming it in terms of speed.
Two-dimensional (2D) convolutional codes are a generalization of (1D) convolutional codes, which are very appropriate for transmission over an erasure channel. In this paper, we present a decoding algorithm for 2D convolutional codes over this kind of channel by reducing the decoding process to several decoding steps with 1D convolutional codes. Moreover, we provide constructions of 2D convolutional codes that are specially taylored to our decoding algorithm.
We propose a novel soft-aided low-complexity decoder for product codes based on dynamic reliability scores and error-and-erasure decoding. We observe coding gains of up to 1.2 dB compared to conventional hard-decision decoders.
In this paper, we characterize the decoding region of algebraic soft decoding (ASD) of Reed-Solomon (RS) codes over erasure channels and binary symmetric channel (BSC). Optimal multiplicity assignment strategies (MAS) are investigated and tight bounds are derived to show the ASD can significantly outperform conventional Berlekamp Massey (BM) decoding over these channels for a wide code rate range. The analysis technique can also be extended to other channel models, e.g., RS coded modulation over erasure channels.
We study faulty successive cancellation decoding of polar codes for the binary erasure channel. To this end, we introduce a simple erasure-based fault model and we show that, under this model, polarization does not happen, meaning that fully reliable communication is not possible at any rate. Moreover, we provide numerical results for the frame erasure rate and bit erasure rate and we study an unequal error protection scheme that can significantly improve the performance of the faulty successive cancellation decoder with negligible overhead.
Practical random network coding based schemes for multicast include a header in each packet that records the transformation between the sources and the terminal. The header introduces an overhead that can be significant in certain scenarios. In previous work, parity check matrices of error control codes along with error decoding were used to reduce this overhead. In this work we propose novel packet formats that allow us to use erasure decoding and list decoding. Both schemes have a smaller overhead compared to the error decoding based scheme, when the number of sources combined in a packet is…
Algebraic decoding algorithms are commonly applied for the decoding of Reed-Solomon codes. Their main advantages are low computational complexity and predictable decoding capabilities. Many algorithms can be extended for correction of both errors and erasures. This enables the decoder to exploit binary quantized reliability information obtained from the transmission channel: Received symbols with high reliability are forwarded to the decoding algorithm while symbols with low reliability are erased. In this paper we investigate adaptive single-trial error/erasure decoding of Reed-Solomon codes,…
Recently, error correcting codes in the erasure channel have drawn great attention for various applications such as distributed storage systems and wireless sensor networks, but many of their decoding algorithms are not practical because they have higher decoding complexity and longer delay. Thus, the automorphism group decoder (AGD) for cyclic codes in the erasure channel was introduced, which has good erasure decoding performance with low decoding complexity. In this paper, we propose new two-stage AGDs (TS-AGDs) for cyclic codes in the erasure channel by modifying the parity check matrix an…
We consider a decoder with an erasure option and a variable size list decoder for channels with non-casual side information at the transmitter. First, universally achievable error exponents are offered for decoding with an erasure option using a parameterized decoder in the spirit of Csiszár and Körner's decoder. Then, the proposed decoding rule is generalized by extending the range of its parameters to allow variable size list decoding. This extension gives a unified treatment for erasure/list decoding. Exponential bounds on the probability of list error and the average number of incorrect me…
We consider a windowed decoding scheme for LDPC convolutional codes that is based on the belief-propagation (BP) algorithm. We discuss the advantages of this decoding scheme and identify certain characteristics of LDPC convolutional code ensembles that exhibit good performance with the windowed decoder. We will consider the performance of these ensembles and codes over erasure channels with and without memory. We show that the structure of LDPC convolutional code ensembles is suitable to obtain performance close to the theoretical limits over the memoryless erasure channel, both for the BP dec…
A generic $(r,m)$-erasure correcting set is a collection of vectors in $\bF_2^r$ which can be used to generate, for each binary linear code of codimension $r$, a collection of parity check equations that enables iterative decoding of all correctable erasure patterns of size at most $m$. That is to say, the only stopping sets of size at most $m$ for the generated parity check equations are the erasure patterns for which there is more than one manner to fill in theerasures to obtain a codeword. We give an explicit construction of generic $(r,m)$-erasure correcting sets of cardinality $\sum_{i=0}…
A new algorithm for efficient exact maximum likelihood decoding of polar codes (which may be CRC augmented), transmitted over the binary erasure channel, is presented. The algorithm applies a matrix triangulation process on a sparse polar code parity check matrix, followed by solving a small size linear system over GF(2). To implement the matrix triangulation, we apply belief propagation decoding type operations. We also indicate how this decoder can be implemented in parallel for low latency decoding. Numerical simulations are used to evaluate the performance and computational complexity of t…
Motivated by applications of rateless coding, decision feedback, and ARQ, we study the problem of universal decoding for unknown channels, in the presence of an erasure option. Specifically, we harness the competitive minimax methodology developed in earlier studies, in order to derive a universal version of Forney's classical erasure/list decoder, which in the erasure case, optimally trades off between the probability of erasure and the probability of undetected error. The proposed universal erasure decoder guarantees universal achievability of a certain fraction $ξ$ of the optimum error expo…
In this paper, faulty successive cancellation decoding of polar codes for the binary erasure channel is studied. To this end, a simple erasure-based fault model is introduced to represent errors in the decoder and it is shown that, under this model, polarization does not happen, meaning that fully reliable communication is not possible at any rate. Furthermore, a lower bound on the frame error rate of polar codes under faulty SC decoding is provided, which is then used, along with a well-known upper bound, in order to choose a blocklength that minimizes the erasure probability under faulty dec…
Traditionally, multi-trial error/erasure decoding of Reed-Solomon (RS) codes is based on Bounded Minimum Distance (BMD) decoders with an erasure option. Such decoders have error/erasure tradeoff factor L=2, which means that an error is twice as expensive as an erasure in terms of the code's minimum distance. The Guruswami-Sudan (GS) list decoder can be considered as state of the art in algebraic decoding of RS codes. Besides an erasure option, it allows to adjust L to values in the range 1<L<=2. Based on previous work, we provide formulae which allow to optimally (in terms of residual codeword…
In this paper, we show that Quasi-Cyclic LDPC codes can efficiently accommodate the hybrid iterative/ML decoding over the binary erasure channel. We demonstrate that the quasi-cyclic structure of the parity-check matrix can be advantageously used in order to significantly reduce the complexity of the ML decoding. This is achieved by a simple row/column permutation that transforms a QC matrix into a pseudo-band form. Based on this approach, we propose a class of QC-LDPC codes with almost ideal error correction performance under the ML decoding, while the required number of row/symbol operations…
Inner and outer bounds are derived on the optimal performance of fixed length block codes on discrete memoryless channels with feedback and errors-and-erasures decoding. First an inner bound is derived using a two phase encoding scheme with communication and control phases together with the optimal decoding rule for the given encoding scheme, among decoding rules that can be represented in terms of pairwise comparisons between the messages. Then an outer bound is derived using a generalization of the straight-line bound to errors-and-erasures decoders and the optimal error exponent trade off o…
We continue the study of rateless codes for transmission of information across channels whose rate of erasure is unknown. In such a code, an infinite stream of encoding symbols can be generated from the message and sent across the erasure channel, and the decoder can decode the message after it has successfully collected a certain number of encoding symbols. A rateless erasure code is real-time oblivious if rather than collecting encoding symbols as they are received, the receiver either immediately decodes or discards each symbol it receives. Efficient real-time oblivious erasure correction u…
We derive the optimum second-order coding rates, known as second-order capacities, for erasure and list decoding. For erasure decoding for discrete memoryless channels, we show that second-order capacity is $\sqrt{V}Φ^{-1}(ε_t)$ where $V$ is the channel dispersion and $ε_t$ is the total error probability, i.e., the sum of the erasure and undetected errors. We show numerically that the expected rate at finite blocklength for erasures decoding can exceed the finite blocklength channel coding rate. We also show that the analogous result also holds for lossless source coding with decoder side info…
In this paper, we first introduce the extended binary representation of non-binary codes, which corresponds to a covering graph of the bipartite graph associated with the non-binary code. Then we show that non-binary codewords correspond to binary codewords of the extended representation that further satisfy some simplex-constraint: that is, bits lying over the same symbol-node of the non-binary graph must form a codeword of a simplex code. Applied to the binary erasure channel, this description leads to a binary erasure decoding algorithm of non-binary LDPC codes, whose complexity depends lin…
We give a linear-time erasure list-decoding algorithm for expander codes. More precisely, let $r > 0$ be any integer. Given an inner code $C_0$ of length $d$, and a $d$-regular bipartite expander graph $G$ with $n$ vertices on each side, we give an algorithm to list-decode the expander code $C = C(G, C_0)$ of length $nd$ from approximately $δδ_r nd$ erasures in time $n \cdot \mathrm{poly}(d2^r / δ)$, where $δ$ and $δ_r$ are the relative distance and the $r$'th generalized relative distance of $C_0$, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first linear-time algorithm that can li…
A new interpolation-based decoding principle for interleaved Gabidulin codes is presented. The approach consists of two steps: First, a multi-variate linearized polynomial is constructed which interpolates the coefficients of the received word and second, the roots of this polynomial have to be found. Due to the specific structure of the interpolation polynomial, both steps (interpolation and root-finding) can be accomplished by solving a linear system of equations. This decoding principle can be applied as a list decoding algorithm (where the list size is not necessarily bounded polynomially)…
We investigate adaptive single-trial error/erasure decoding of binary codes whose decoder is able to correct e errors and t erasures if le+t<=d-1. Thereby, d is the minimum Hamming distance of the code and 1<l<=2 is the tradeoff parameter between errors and erasures. The error/erasure decoder allows to exploit soft information by treating a set of most unreliable received symbols as erasures. The obvious question here is, how this erasing should be performed, i.e. how the unreliable symbols which must be erased to obtain the smallest possible residual codeword error probability are determined.…
In this paper, we employ the linear systems representation of a convolutional code to develop a decoding algorithm for convolutional codes over the erasure channel. We study the decoding problem using the state space description and this provides in a natural way additional information. With respect to previously known decoding algorithms, our new algorithm has the advantage that it is able to reduce the decoding delay as well as the computational effort in the erasure recovery process. We describe which properties a convolutional code should have in order to obtain a good decoding performance…
We consider the problem of erasure/list decoding using certain classes of simplified decoders. Specifically, we assume a class of erasure/list decoders, such that a codeword is in the list if its likelihood is larger than a threshold. This class of decoders both approximates the optimal decoder of Forney, and also includes the following simplified subclasses of decoding rules: The first is a function of the output vector only, but not the codebook (which is most suitable for high rates), and the second is a scaled version of the maximum likelihood decoder (which is most suitable for low rates)…
The decoding performance of product codes and staircase codes based on iterative bounded-distance decoding (iBDD) can be improved with the aid of a moderate amount of soft information, maintaining a low decoding complexity. One promising approach is error-and-erasure (EaE) decoding, whose performance can be reliably estimated with density evolution (DE). However, the extrinsic message passing (EMP) decoder required by the DE analysis entails a much higher complexity than the simple intrinsic message passing (IMP) decoder. In this paper, we simplify the EMP decoding algorithm for the EaE channe…
In this paper, we consider a few iterative decoding schemes for the joint source-channel coding of correlated sources. Specifically, we consider the joint source-channel coding of two erasure correlated sources with transmission over different erasure channels. Our main interest is in determining whether or not various code ensembles can achieve the capacity region universally over varying channel conditions. We consider two ensembles in the class of low-density generator-matrix (LDGM) codes known as Luby-Transform (LT) codes and one ensemble of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. We analyz…
Product codes (PCs) and staircase codes (SCCs) are conventionally decoded based on bounded distance decoding (BDD) of the component codes and iterating between row and column decoders. The performance of iterative BDD (iBDD) can be improved using soft-aided (hybrid) algorithms. Among these, iBDD with combined reliability (iBDD-CR) has been recently proposed for PCs, yielding sizeable performance gains at the expense of a minor increase in complexity compared to iBDD. In this paper, we first extend iBDD-CR to SCCs. We then propose two novel decoding algorithms for PCs and SCCs which improve upo…
We show that Reed-Muller codes achieve capacity under maximum a posteriori bit decoding for transmission over the binary erasure channel for all rates $0 < R < 1$. The proof is generic and applies to other codes with sufficient amount of symmetry as well. The main idea is to combine the following observations: (i) monotone functions experience a sharp threshold behavior, (ii) the extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) functions are monotone, (iii) Reed--Muller codes are 2-transitive and thus the EXIT functions associated with their codeword bits are all equal, and (iv) therefore the Area Theore…
In this paper we present a thorough analysis of non binary LDPC codes over the binary erasure channel. First, the decoding of non binary LDPC codes is investigated. The proposed algorithm performs on-the-fly decoding, i.e. it starts decoding as soon as the first symbols are received, which generalizes the erasure decoding of binary LDPC codes. Next, we evaluate the asymptotical performance of ensembles of non binary LDPC codes, by using the density evolution method. Density evolution equations are derived by taking into consideration both the irregularity of the bipartite graph and the probabi…
In this paper we study the decoding capabilities of convolutional codes over the erasure channel. Of special interest will be maximum distance profile (MDP) convolutional codes. These are codes which have a maximum possible column distance increase. We show how this strong minimum distance condition of MDP convolutional codes help us to solve error situations that maximum distance separable (MDS) block codes fail to solve. Towards this goal, we define two subclasses of MDP codes: reverse-MDP convolutional codes and complete-MDP convolutional codes. Reverse-MDP codes have the capability to reco…
High-rate product codes (PCs) and staircase codes (SCs) are ubiquitous codes in high-speed optical communication achieving near-capacity performance on the binary symmetric channel. Their success is mostly due to very efficient iterative decoding algorithms that require very little complexity. In this paper, we extend the density evolution (DE) analysis for PCs and SCs to a channel with ternary output and ternary message passing, where the third symbol marks an erasure. We investigate the performance of a standard error-and-erasure decoder and of its simplification using DE. The proposed analy…
Motivated by modern network communication applications which require low latency, we study codes that correct erasures with low decoding delay. We provide a simple explicit construction that yields convolutional codes that can correct both burst and arbitrary erasures under a maximum decoding delay constraint $T$. Our proposed code has efficient encoding/decoding algorithms and requires a field size that is linear in $T$. We study the performance of our code over the Gilbert-Elliot channel; our simulation results show significant performance gains over low-delay codes existing in the literatur…
Codes in the sum-rank metric have various applications in error control for multishot network coding, distributed storage and code-based cryptography. Linearized Reed-Solomon (LRS) codes contain Reed-Solomon and Gabidulin codes as subclasses and fulfill the Singleton-like bound in the sum-rank metric with equality. We propose the first known error-erasure decoder for LRS codes to unleash their full potential for multishot network coding. The presented syndrome-based Berlekamp-Massey-like error-erasure decoder can correct $t_F$ full errors, $t_R$ row erasures and $t_C$ column erasures up to $2t…
Expectation Propagation is a generalization to Belief Propagation (BP) in two ways. First, it can be used with any exponential family distribution over the cliques in the graph. Second, it can impose additional constraints on the marginal distributions. We use this second property to impose pair-wise marginal distribution constraints in some check nodes of the LDPC Tanner graph. These additional constraints allow decoding the received codeword when the BP decoder gets stuck. In this paper, we first present the new decoding algorithm, whose complexity is identical to the BP decoder, and we then…
When information is to be transmitted over an unknown, possibly unreliable channel, an erasure option at the decoder is desirable. Using constant-composition random codes, we propose a generalization of Csiszar and Korner's Maximum Mutual Information decoder with erasure option for discrete memoryless channels. The new decoder is parameterized by a weighting function that is designed to optimize the fundamental tradeoff between undetected-error and erasure exponents for a compound class of channels. The class of weighting functions may be further enlarged to optimize a similar tradeoff for lis…
This paper considers multiplexing two sequences of messages with two different decoding delays over a packet erasure channel. In each time slot, the source constructs a packet based on the current and previous messages and transmits the packet, which may be erased when the packet travels from the source to the destination. The destination must perfectly recover every source message in the first sequence subject to a decoding delay $T_\mathrm{v}$ and every source message in the second sequence subject to a shorter decoding delay $T_\mathrm{u}\le T_\mathrm{v}$. We assume that the channel loss mo…
A general class of polynomial remainder codes is considered. Such codes are very flexible in rate and length and include Reed-Solomon codes as a special case. As an extension of previous work, two joint error-and-erasure decoding approaches are proposed. In particular, both the decoding approaches by means of a fixed transform are treated in a way compatible with the error-only decoding. In the end, a collection of gcd-based decoding algorithm is obtained, some of which appear to be new even when specialized to Reed-Solomon codes.
A new method for low-complexity near-maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes over the additive white Gaussian noise channel is presented. The proposed method termed belief-propagation--list erasure decoding (BP-LED) is based on erasing carefully chosen unreliable bits performed in case of BP decoding failure. A strategy of introducing erasures into the received vector and a new erasure decoding algorithm are proposed. The new erasure decoding algorithm, called list erasure decoding, combines ML decoding over the BEC with list decoding applied if the ML decoder…
Surface codes are among the best candidates to ensure the fault-tolerance of a quantum computer. In order to avoid the accumulation of errors during a computation, it is crucial to have at our disposal a fast decoding algorithm to quickly identify and correct errors as soon as they occur. We propose a linear-time maximum likelihood decoder for surface codes over the quantum erasure channel. This decoding algorithm for dealing with qubit loss is optimal both in terms of performance and speed.
A lower bound on the maximum likelihood (ML) decoding error exponent of linear block code ensembles, on the erasure channel, is developed. The lower bound turns to be positive, over an ensemble specific interval of erasure probabilities, when the ensemble weight spectral shape function tends to a negative value as the fractional codeword weight tends to zero. For these ensembles we can therefore lower bound the block-wise ML decoding threshold. Two examples are presented, namely, linear random parity-check codes and fixed-rate Raptor codes with linear random precoders. While for the former a f…
This paper is devoted to the finite-length analysis of turbo decoding over the binary erasure channel (BEC). The performance of iterative belief-propagation (BP) decoding of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes over the BEC can be characterized in terms of stopping sets. We describe turbo decoding on the BEC which is simpler than turbo decoding on other channels. We then adapt the concept of stopping sets to turbo decoding and state an exact condition for decoding failure. Apply turbo decoding until the transmitted codeword has been recovered, or the decoder fails to progress further. Then th…
Random jammers that overpower transmitted signals are a practical concern for many wireless communication protocols. As such, wireless receivers must be able to cope with standard channel noise and jamming (intentional or unintentional). To address this challenge, we propose a novel method to augment the resilience of the recent family of universal error-correcting GRAND algorithms. This method, called Erasure Decoding by Gaussian Elimination (EDGE), impacts the syndrome check block and is applicable to any variant of GRAND. We show that the proposed EDGE method naturally reverts to the origin…
We present a practical algorithm to decode erasures of Reed-Solomon codes over the q elements binary field in O(q \log_2^2 q) time where the constant implied by the O-notation is very small. Asymptotically fast algorithms based on fast polynomial arithmetic were already known, but even if their complexity is similar, they are mostly impractical. By comparison our algorithm uses only a few Walsh transforms and has been easily implemented.
One popular approach to soft-decision decoding of Reed-Solomon (RS) codes is based on using multiple trials of a simple RS decoding algorithm in combination with erasing or flipping a set of symbols or bits in each trial. This paper presents a framework based on rate-distortion (RD) theory to analyze these multiple-decoding algorithms. By defining an appropriate distortion measure between an error pattern and an erasure pattern, the successful decoding condition, for a single errors-and-erasures decoding trial, becomes equivalent to distortion being less than a fixed threshold. Finding the bes…
Erasure list decoding was introduced to correct a larger number of erasures with output of a list of possible candidates. In the present paper, we consider both random linear codes and algebraic geometry codes for list decoding erasure errors. The contributions of this paper are two-fold. Firstly, we show that, for arbitrary $0<R<1$ and $ε>0$ ($R$ and $ε$ are independent), with high probability a random linear code is an erasure list decodable code with constant list size $2^{O(1/ε)}$ that can correct a fraction $1-R-ε$ of erasures, i.e., a random linear code achieves the information-theoretic…
This paper investigates decoding of binary linear block codes over the binary erasure channel (BEC). Of the current iterative decoding algorithms on this channel, we review the Recovery Algorithm and the Guess Algorithm. We then present a Multi-Guess Algorithm extended from the Guess Algorithm and a new algorithm -- the In-place Algorithm. The Multi-Guess Algorithm can push the limit to break the stopping sets. However, the performance of the Guess and the Multi-Guess Algorithm depend on the parity-check matrix of the code. Simulations show that we can decrease the frame error rate by several …
We introduce a definition for \emph{Families of Optimal Binary Non-MDS Erasure Codes} for $[n, k]$ codes over $GF(2)$, and propose an algorithm for finding those families by using hill climbing techniques over Balanced XOR codes. Due to the hill climbing search, those families of codes have always better decoding probability than the codes generated in a typical Random Linear Network Coding scenario, i.e., random linear codes. We also show a surprising result that for small values of $k$, the decoding probability of our codes in $GF(2)$ is very close to the decoding probability of the codes ob…
In this paper, we develop a new channel model, which we name the $q$-ary partial erasure channel (QPEC). The QPEC has a $q$-ary input, and its output is either the input symbol or a set of $M$ ($2 \le M \le q$) symbols, containing the input symbol. This channel serves as a generalization to the binary erasure channel, and mimics situations when a symbol output from the channel is known only partially, that is, the output symbol contains some ambiguity, but is not fully erased. This type of channel is motivated by non-volatile memory multi-level read channels. In such channels the readout is ob…
