Decoder Error Propagation Mitigation for Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes

In this paper, we introduce two new methods of mitigating decoder error propagation for low-latency sliding window decoding (SWD) of spatially coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) codes. Building on the recently introduced idea of check node (CN) doping of regular SC-LDPC codes, here we employ variable node (VN) doping to fix (set to a known value) a subset of variable nodes in the coupling chain. Both of these doping methods have the effect of allowing SWD to recover from error propagation, at a cost of a slight rate loss. Experimental results show that, similar to CN doping, VN doping improves performance by up to two orders of magnitude compared to un-doped SC-LDPC codes in the typical signal-to-noise ratio operating range. Further, compared to CN doping, VN doping has the advantage of not requiring any changes to the decoding process. In addition, a log-likelihood-ratio based window extension algorithm is proposed to reduce the effect of error propagation. Using this approach, we show that decoding latency can be reduced by up to a significant fraction without suffering any loss in performance.