Low-complexity soft-decision decoding techniques for linear binary block codes

In this paper, the segmentation-based order statistics decoding and the partial-order statistics decoding are proposed as low-complexity soft-decision decoding schemes for linear binary block codes of small to medium block length. The bit error rate performance and complexity of these decoding schemes are shown to outperform, in some cases, the original order statistics decoding. Furthermore, it is conjectured that the bit error rate performance can be improved with a small implementation cost by enhancing the receiver front-end, for example, using multiple receiving antennas, rather than improving the performance by employing more complex forward error correction codes.