Improving soft FEC performance for higher-order modulations via optimized bit channel mappings

Soft forward error correction with higher-order modulations is often implemented in practice via the pragmatic bit-interleaved coded modulation paradigm, where a single binary code is mapped to a nonbinary modulation. In this paper, we study the optimization of the mapping of the coded bits to the modulation bits for a polarization-multiplexed fiber-optical system without optical inline dispersion compensation. Our focus is on protograph-based low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes which allow for an efficient hardware implementation, suitable for high-speed optical communications. The optimization is applied to the AR4JA protograph family, and further extended to protograph-based spatially coupled LDPC codes assuming a windowed decoder. Full field simulations via the split-step Fourier method are used to verify the analysis. The results show performance gains of up to 0.25 dB, which translate into a possible extension of the transmission reach by roughly up to 8%, without significantly increasing the system complexity.Comment: This paper was published in Optics Express and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-22-12-1454

A linear construction for certain Kerdock and Preparata codes

The Nordstrom-Robinson, Kerdock, and (slightly modified) Pre\- parata codes are shown to be linear over \ZZ_4, the integers $\bmod~4$. The Kerdock and Preparata codes are duals over \ZZ_4, and the Nordstrom-Robinson code is self-dual. All these codes are just extended cyclic codes over \ZZ_4. This provides a simple definition for these codes and explains why their Hamming weight distributions are dual to each other. First- and second-order Reed-Muller codes are also linear codes over \ZZ_4, but Hamming codes in general are not, nor is the Golay code.Comment: 5 page

Subspace subcodes of Reed-Solomon codes

We introduce a class of nonlinear cyclic error-correcting codes, which we call subspace subcodes of Reed-Solomon (SSRS) codes. An SSRS code is a subset of a parent Reed-Solomon (RS) code consisting of the RS codewords whose components all lie in a fixed ν-dimensional vector subspace S of GF (2m). SSRS codes are constructed using properties of the Galois field GF(2m). They are not linear over the field GF(2ν), which does not come into play, but rather are Abelian group codes over S. However, they are linear over GF(2), and the symbol-wise cyclic shift of any codeword is also a codeword. Our main result is an explicit but complicated formula for the dimension of an SSRS code. It implies a simple lower bound, which gives the true value of the dimension for most, though not all, subspaces. We also prove several important duality properties. We present some numerical examples, which show, among other things, that (1) SSRS codes can have a higher dimension than comparable subfield subcodes of RS codes, so that even if GF(2ν) is a subfield of GF(2m), it may not be the best ν-dimensional subspace for constructing SSRS codes; and (2) many high-rate SSRS codes have a larger dimension than any previously known code with the same values of n, d, and q, including algebraic-geometry codes. These examples suggest that high-rate SSRS codes are promising candidates to replace Reed-Solomon codes in high-performance transmission and storage systems