IEEE Communications Letters
Hybrid Hard-Decision Iterative Decoding of Regular Low-Density Parity-Check Codes
Pirouz Zarrinkhat, Amir H. Banihashemi
Abstract
Hybrid decoding means to combine different iterative decoding algorithms with the aim of improving error performance or decoding complexity. In this work, we introduce "time-invariant" hybrid (H/sub TI/) algorithms, and using density evolution show that for regular low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes and binary message-passing algorithms, H/sub TI/ algorithms perform remarkably better than their constituent algorithms. We also show that compared to "switch-type" hybrid (H/sub ST/) algorithms, such as Gallager's algorithm B, where a comparable improvement is obtained by switching between different iterative decoding algorithms, H/sub TI/ algorithms are far less sensitive to channel conditions and thus can be practically more attractive.