Iterative Soft-Decision Decoding of Binary Cyclic Codes Based on Extended Parity-Check Transformation Algorithm

In this paper, an iterative soft-decision (SD) decoding algorithm for cyclic codes based on extended parity-check equations is developed. The algorithm does not necessarily utilize the algebraic properties of the code, but operates on transforming the systematic parity-check matrix using the soft reliability information matrix obtained from the received vector. Results show a significant performance gain when compared with the hard decision Berlekamp-Massey(B-M) and belief propagation (BP) algorithms, but present a similar bit error rate (BER) performance when compared to the adaptive belief propagation (ABP) algorithm. An important feature of the decoder is that it functions within a practical decoding time complexity, and can be generally implemented for the class of linear block codes.