An optimal two-stage decoding algorithm for linear block codes

A new optimal two stages decoding algorithm for linear block codes is presented. At first stage, the minimum sufficient test set S/spl circ/ is estimated. With the minimum sufficient test set, decoding complexity can be greatly reduced while maintaining the optimal performance. At the second stage, ordered processing is performed over the estimated minimum sufficient test set S/spl circ/ to find the optimal solution. Ordered processing helps to find the optimal solution quickly and in the meanwhile enables complexity-reduced suboptimal solution with bounded block error rate. Simulation result shows that this algorithm achieves the optimal performance with low average computational complexity.