Two-Dimensional Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm with a Variable Reliability Factor for Holographic Data Storage

In a practical holographic data storage system, the reconstruction process for a data page should account for the processing time as well as the bit error rate (BER) performance. To improve both aspects, we introduce two-dimensional (2D) partial response maximum likelihood composed of a 2D partial response (PR) target including diagonal elements and a 2D soft output Viterbi algorithm (SOVA) with a variable reliability factor. The 2D SOVA performs two one-dimensional (1D) SOVAs in structural accordance with the 2D PR target where extrinsic information uses the expected value calculated on a synchronization pattern. Finally, the 2D SOVA exports a weighted average using the reliability factor that is updated similarly as the optimization scheme for each page. The simulation results show that the proposed method has superior BER performance, despite using only two 1D SOVAs as compared with the modified 2D SOVA composed of four 1D SOVAs. (c) 2013 The Japan Society of Applied Physics