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IEEE Transactions on Information Theory

Efficiently Decoding Reed–Muller Codes From Random Errors

Ramprasad Saptharishi, Amir Shpilka, Ben Lee Volk

Published Feb 17, 2017• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Reed-Muller (RM) codes encode an m-variate polynomial of degree at most r by evaluating it on all points in {0,1}m. We denote this code by RM(r,m). The minimum distance of RM(r,m) is 2m-rand so it cannot correct more than half that number of errors in the worst case. For random errors one may hope for a better result. In this paper we give an efficient algorithm (in the block length n=2m) for decoding random errors in RM codes far beyond the minimum distance. Specifically, for low-rate codes (of degree r=o(√m)), we can correct a random set of (1/2-o(1))n errors with high probability. For high rate codes (of degree m-r for r=o(√m/log m)), we can correct roughly mr/2errors. More generally, for any integer r, our algorithm can correct any error pattern in RM(m-(2r+2),m), for which the same erasure pattern can be corrected in RM(m-(r+1),m). The results above are obtained by applying recent results of Abbe, Shpilka, and Wigderson (STOC, 2015) and Kudekar et al. (STOC, 2016) regarding the ability of RM codes to correct random erasures. The algorithm is based on solving a carefully defined set of linear equations and thus it is significantly different than other algorithms for decoding RM codes that are based on the recursive structure of the code. It can be seen as a more explicit proof of a result of Abbe et al. that shows a reduction from correcting erasures to correcting errors, and it also bares some similarities with the error-locating pair method of Pellikaan, Duursma, and Kötter that generalizes the Berlekamp-Welch algorithm for decoding Reed-Solomon codes.

DOI
10.1109/tit.2017.2671410

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Reed-Muller (RM) codes encode an m-variate polynomial of degree at most r by evaluating it on all points in {0,1}m. We denote this code by RM(r,m). The minimum distance of RM(r,m) is 2m-rand so it cannot correct more than half that number of errors in the worst case. For random errors one may hope for a better result. In this paper we give an efficient algorithm (in the block length n=2m) for decoding random errors in RM codes far beyond the minimum distance. Specifically, for low-rate codes (of degree r=o(√m)), we can correct a random set of (1/2-o(1))n errors with high probability. For high rate codes (of degree m-r for r=o(√m/log m)), we can correct roughly mr/2errors. More generally, for any integer r, our algorithm can correct any error pattern in RM(m-(2r+2),m), for which the same erasure pattern can be corrected in RM(m-(r+1),m). The results above are obtained by applying recent results of Abbe, Shpilka, and Wigderson (STOC, 2015) and Kudekar et al. (STOC, 2016) regarding the ability of RM codes to correct random erasures. The algorithm is based on solving a carefully defined set of linear equations and thus it is significantly different than other algorithms for decoding RM codes that are based on the recursive structure of the code. It can be seen as a more explicit proof of a result of Abbe et al. that shows a reduction from correcting erasures to correcting errors, and it also bares some similarities with the error-locating pair method of Pellikaan, Duursma, and Kötter that generalizes the Berlekamp-Welch algorithm for decoding Reed-Solomon codes.
Reed-Muller codes encode an mmm-variate polynomial of degree rrr by evaluating it on all points in {0,1}m\{0,1\}^m{0,1}m. We denote this code by RM(m,r)RM(m,r)RM(m,r). The minimal distance of RM(m,r)RM(m,r)RM(m,r) is 2m−r2^{m-r}2m−r and so it cannot correct more than half that number of errors in the worst case. For random errors one may hope for a better result. In this work we give an efficient algorithm (in the block length n=2mn=2^mn=2m) for decoding random errors in Reed-Muller codes far beyond the minimal distance. Specifically, for low rate codes (of degree r=o(m)r=o(\sqrt{m})r=o(m​)) we can correct a random set of (1/2−o(1))n(1/2-o(1))n(1/2−o(1))n errors with high probability. For high rate codes (of degree m−rm-rm−r for r=o(m/log⁡m)r=o(\sqrt{m/\log m})r=o(m/logm​)), we can correct roughly mr/2m^{r/2}mr/2 errors. More generally, for any integer rrr, our algorithm can correct any error pattern in RM(m,m−(2r+2))RM(m,m-(2r+2))RM(m,m−(2r+2)) for which the same erasure pattern can be corrected in RM(m,m−(r+1))RM(m,m-(r+1))RM(m,m−(r+1)). The results above are obtained by applying recent results of Abbe, Shpilka and Wigderson (STOC, 2015), Kumar and Pfister (2015) and Kudekar et al. (2015) regarding the ability of Reed-Muller codes to correct random erasures. The algorithm is based on solving a carefully defined set of linear equations and thus it is significantly different than other algorithms for decoding Reed-Muller codes that are based on the recursive structure of the code. It can be seen as a more explicit proof of a result of Abbe et al. that shows a reduction from correcting erasures to correcting errors, and it also bares some similarities with the famous Berlekamp-Welch algorithm for decoding Reed-Solomon codes.
New soft- and hard decision decoding algorithms are presented for general Reed-Muller codes $\left\{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{m}{r}\right\} $ of length 2m2^{m}2m and distance 2m−r2^{m-r}2m−r. We use Plotkin (u,u+v)(u,u+v)(u,u+v) construction and decompose code $\left\{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{m}{r}\right\} $ onto subblocks $u\in\left\{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{m-1}{r}\right\} $ and v∈{m−1r−1}.v\in\left\{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{m-1}{r-1}\right\} .v∈{r−1m−1​}. In decoding, we first try to find a subblock vvv from the better protected code and then proceed with the block uuu. The likelihoods of the received symbols are recalculated in a way similar to belief propagation. Thus, decoding is relegated to the two constituent codes. We repeat this recursion and execute decoding only at the end nodes $\left\{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{j}{1}\right\} $ and $\left\{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{j}{j-1}\right\} $. The overall complexity has low order of nlog⁡n.n\log n.nlogn. It is shown that this decoding substantially outperforms other algorithms of polynomial complexity known for RM codes. In particular, for medium and high code rates, the algorithm corrects most error patterns of weight dln⁡d/2.d\ln d/2.dlnd/2.
This paper studies the parameters for which binary Reed-Muller (RM) codes can be decoded successfully on the BEC and BSC, and in particular when can they achieve capacity for these two classical channels. Necessarily, the paper also studies properties of evaluations of multi-variate GF(2) polynomials on random sets of inputs. For erasures, we prove that RM codes achieve capacity both for very high rate and very low rate regimes. For errors, we prove that RM codes achieve capacity for very low rate regimes, and for very high rates, we show that they can uniquely decode at about square root of the number of errors at capacity.
The classical majority-logic decoder proposed by Reed for Reed-Muller codes RM(r, m) of order r and length 2^m, unfolds in r+1 sequential steps, decoding message symbols from highest to lowest degree. Several follow-up decoding algorithms reduced the number of steps, but for a limited set of parameters, or at the expense of reduced performance, or relying on the existence of some combinatorial structures. We show that any one-step majority-logic decoder-that is, a decoder performing all majority votes in one step simultaneously without sequential processing-can correct at most d_min/4 errors for all values of r and m, where d_min denotes the code's minimum distance. We then introduce a new hard-decision decoder that completes the decoding in a single step and attains this error-correction limit. It applies to all r and m, and can be viewed as a parallel realization of Reed's original algorithm, decoding all message symbols simultaneously. Remarkably, we also prove that the decoder is optimum in the erasure setting: it recovers the message from any erasure pattern of up to d_min-1 symbols-the theoretical limit. To our knowledge, this is the first 1-step decoder for RM codes that achieves both optimal erasure correction and the maximum one-step error correction capability.
Recursive decoding techniques are considered for Reed-Muller (RM) codes of growing length nnn and fixed order r.r.r. An algorithm is designed that has complexity of order nlog⁡nn\log nnlogn and corrects most error patterns of weight up to n(1/2−ε)n(1/2-\varepsilon)n(1/2−ε) given that ε\varepsilonε exceeds n−1/2r.n^{-1/2^{r}}.n−1/2r. This improves the asymptotic bounds known for decoding RM codes with nonexponential complexity.