An efficient maximum-likelihood-decoding algorithm for linear block codes with algebraic decoder

A new soft decoding algorithm for linear block codes is proposed. The decoding algorithm works with any algebraic decoder and its performance is strictly the same as that of maximum-likelihood-decoding (MLD). Since our decoding algorithm generates sets of different candidate codewords corresponding to the received sequence, its decoding complexity depends on the received sequence. We compare our decoding algorithm with Chase (1972) algorithm 2 and the Tanaka-Kakigahara (1983) algorithm in which a similar method for generating candidate codewords is used. Computer simulation results indicate, for some signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), that our decoding algorithm requires less average complexity than those of the other two algorithms, but the performance of ours is always superior to those of the other two.<
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