Multiple-Bases Belief-Propagation for decoding of short block codes

A novel soft-decoding method for algebraic block codes is presented. The algorithm is designed for soft-decision decoding and is based on Belief-Propagation (BP) decoding using multiple bases of the dual code. Compared to other approaches for high-performance BP decoding, this method is conceptually simple and does not change at each stage of the decoding process. With its multiple BP decoders the proposed scheme achieves the performance of a standard BP algorithm with a significantly lower number of iterations per decoder realization. By this means the data delay introduced by decoding is reduced. Moreover, a significant improvement in decoding performance is achieved while keeping the data delay small. It is shown that for selected codes the proposed scheme approaches near maximum likelihood (ML) performance for very small data processing delays.