On the performance of short forward error-correcting codes

Authors

Sheng Tong, Xidian UniversityFollow
Dengsheng Lin, University Of Electronic Science And Technology Of China
Aleksandar Kavcic, University of HawaiiFollow
Li Ping, City University of Hong Kong
Baoming Bai, Xidian University

RIS ID

79918

Publication Details

S. Tong, D. Lin, A. Kavcic, L. Ping & B. Bai, "On the performance of short forward error-correcting codes," IEEE Communications Letters, vol. 11, (11) pp. 880-882, 2007.

Abstract

This letter investigates the performance of short forward error-correcting (FEC) codes. Reed-Solomon (RS) codes and concatenated zigzag codes are chosen as representatives of classical algebraic codes and modern simple iteratively decodable codes, respectively. Additionally, random binary linear codes are used as a baseline reference. Our main results (demonstrated by simulations and ensemble distance spectrum analysis) are as follows: 1) Short RS codes are as good as random binary linear codes; 2) Carefully designed short low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are almost as good as random binary linear codes; 3) Low complexity belief propagation decoders incur considerable performance loss at short coding lengths. Thus, future work could focus on developing low-complexity (near) optimal decoders for RS codes and/or LDPC codes.