Modified belief propagation decoding algorithm for low-density parity check code based on oscillation

A Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC) code with the Belief Propagation (BP) or the Log-Likelihood Ratio Belief Propagation (LLR-BP) can achieve good Bit Error Rate (BER) performance approaching the Shannon limit. When a parity check matrix of the LDPC code has the cycle, the BP and LLR-BP decoding algorithms achieve approximate Maximum A posterior Probability (MAP) decoding. Although the decoding algorithms are approximate MAP decoding, LDPC codes can achieve very good BER. For the short and middle length LDPC codes, BER and BLock Error Rate (BLER) performances are affected by cycle largely. In each iteration, the magnitudes of a posterior LLRs of some bits oscillate owing to cycles. The oscillation is the dominant error factor in the high E_b/N₀ region for short and middle length LDPC codes. In this paper, we extend the definition of oscillation to extrinsic LLR (ex-LLR) derived in the bit node process and propose the modified LLR-BP and the modified UMP-BP decoding algorithms. To reduce effects of oscillating ex-LLRs on decoding, for oscillating ex-LLRs, we add the previous ex-LLR to the current ex-LLR. From the computer simulation, we show that for short and middle length LDPC codes, with a simple modification, our proposed decoding algorithms can improve the conventional LLR-BP and UMP-BP decoding algorithms. In particular, we show that the modified UMP-BP decoding algorithm with low complexity can achieve better BER and BLER than the conventional LLR-BP decoding algorithm.