Low-Complexity Codes for Random and Clustered High-Order Failures in Storage Arrays

RC (Random/Clustered) codes are a new efficient array-code family for recovering from 4-erasures. RC codes correct most 4-erasures, and essentially all 4-erasures that are clustered. Clustered erasures are introduced as a new erasure model for storage arrays. This model draws its motivation from correlated device failures, that are caused by physical proximity of devices, or by age proximity of endurance-limited solid-state drives. The reliability of storage arrays that employ RC codes is analyzed and compared to known codes. The new RC code is significantly more efficient, in all practical implementation factors, than the best known 4-erasure correcting MDS code. These factors include: small-write update-complexity, full-device update-complexity, decoding complexity and number of supported devices in the array

MDS array codes with independent parity symbols

A new family of maximum distance separable (MDS) array codes is presented. The code arrays contain p information columns and r independent parity columns, each column consisting of p-1 bits, where p is a prime. We extend a previously known construction for the case r=2 to three and more parity columns. It is shown that when r=3 such extension is possible for any prime p. For larger values of r, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for our codes to be MDS, and then prove that if p belongs to a certain class of primes these conditions are satisfied up to r ≤ 8. One of the advantages of the new codes is that encoding and decoding may be accomplished using simple cyclic shifts and XOR operations on the columns of the code array. We develop efficient decoding procedures for the case of two- and three-column errors. This again extends the previously known results for the case of a single-column error. Another primary advantage of our codes is related to the problem of efficient information updates. We present upper and lower bounds on the average number of parity bits which have to be updated in an MDS code over GF (2^m), following an update in a single information bit. This average number is of importance in many storage applications which require frequent updates of information. We show that the upper bound obtained from our codes is close to the lower bound and, most importantly, does not depend on the size of the code symbols

Algoritmos eficientes de búsqueda de códigos cíclicos y cíclicos acortados correctores de ráfagas múltiples de errores

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Informática, Departamento de Ingeniería del Software e Inteligencia Artificial, leída el 11-09-2014Depto. de Ingeniería de Software e Inteligencia Artificial (ISIA)Fac. de InformáticaTRUEunpu

A concatenated coded modulation scheme for error control

A concatenated coded modulation scheme for error control in data communications is presented. The scheme is achieved by concatenating a Reed-Solomon outer code and a bandwidth efficient block inner code for M-ary PSK modulation. Error performance of the scheme is analyzed for an AWGN channel. It is shown that extremely high reliability can be attained by using a simple M-ary PSK modulation inner code and a relatively powerful Reed-Solomon outer code. Furthermore, if an inner code of high effective rate is used, the bandwidth expansion required by the scheme due to coding will be greatly reduced. The proposed scheme is very effective for high speed satellite communications for large file transfer where high reliability is required. A simple method is also presented for constructing codes for M-ary PSK modulation. Some short M-ary PSK codes with good minimum squared Euclidean distance are constructed. These codes have trellis structure and hence can be decoded with a soft decision Viterbi decoding algorithm. Furthermore, some of these codes are phase invariant under multiples of 45 deg rotation

Error-correction on non-standard communication channels

Many communication systems are poorly modelled by the standard channels assumed in the information theory literature, such as the binary symmetric channel or the additive white Gaussian noise channel. Real systems suffer from additional problems including time-varying noise, cross-talk, synchronization errors and latency constraints. In this thesis, low-density parity-check codes and codes related to them are applied to non-standard channels. First, we look at time-varying noise modelled by a Markov channel. A low-density parity-check code decoder is modified to give an improvement of over 1dB. Secondly, novel codes based on low-density parity-check codes are introduced which produce transmissions with Pr(bit = 1) ≠ Pr(bit = 0). These non-linear codes are shown to be good candidates for multi-user channels with crosstalk, such as optical channels. Thirdly, a channel with synchronization errors is modelled by random uncorrelated insertion or deletion events at unknown positions. Marker codes formed from low-density parity-check codewords with regular markers inserted within them are studied. It is shown that a marker code with iterative decoding has performance close to the bounds on the channel capacity, significantly outperforming other known codes. Finally, coding for a system with latency constraints is studied. For example, if a telemetry system involves a slow channel some error correction is often needed quickly whilst the code should be able to correct remaining errors later. A new code is formed from the intersection of a convolutional code with a high rate low-density parity-check code. The convolutional code has good early decoding performance and the high rate low-density parity-check code efficiently cleans up remaining errors after receiving the entire block. Simulations of the block code show a gain of 1.5dB over a standard NASA code

A study of major coding techniques for digital communication Final report

Coding techniques for digital communication channel

Statistical communication theory Final report, 1 Dec. 1963 - 31 Mar. 1967

Research and scientific reports on statistical communication theor

Efficient soft decoding techniques for reed-solomon codes

The main focus of this thesis is on finding efficient decoding methods for Reed-Solomon (RS) codes, i.e., algorithms with acceptable performance and affordable complexity. Three classes of decoders are considered including sphere decoding, belief propagation decoding and interpolation-based decoding. Originally proposed for finding the exact solution of least-squares problems, sphere decoding (SD) is used along with the most reliable basis (MRB) to design an efficient soft decoding algorithm for RS codes. For an (N, K ) RS code, given the received vector and the lattice of all possible transmitted vectors, we propose to look for only those lattice points that fall within a sphere centered at the received vector and also are valid codewords. To achieve this goal, we use the fact that RS codes are maximum distance separable (MDS). Therefore, we use sphere decoding in order to find tentative solutions consisting of the K most reliable code symbols that fall inside the sphere. The acceptable values for each of these symbols are selected from an ordered set of most probable transmitted symbols. Based on the MDS property, K code symbols of each tentative solution can he used to find the rest of codeword symbols. If the resulting codeword is within the search radius, it is saved as a candidate transmitted codeword. Since we first find the most reliable code symbols and for each of them we use an ordered set of most probable transmitted symbols, candidate codewords are found quickly resulting in reduced complexity. Considerable coding gains are achieved over the traditional hard decision decoders with moderate increase in complexity. Due to their simplicity and good performance when used for decoding low density parity check (LDPC) codes, iterative decoders based on belief propagation (BP) have also been considered for RS codes. However, the parity check matrix of RS codes is very dense resulting in lots of short cycles in the factor graph and consequently preventing the reliability updates (using BP) from converging to a codeword. In this thesis, we propose two BP based decoding methods. In both of them, a low density extended parity check matrix is used because of its lower number of short cycles. In the first method, the cyclic structure of RS codes is taken into account and BP algorithm is applied on different cyclically shifted versions of received reliabilities, capable of detecting different error patterns. This way, some deterministic errors can be avoided. The second method is based on information correction in BP decoding where all possible values are tested for selected bits with low reliabilities. This way, the chance of BP iterations to converge to a codeword is improved significantly. Compared to the existing iterative methods for RS codes, our proposed methods provide a very good trade-off between the performance and the complexity. We also consider interpolation based decoding of RS codes. We specifically focus on Guruswami-Sudan (GS) interpolation decoding algorithm. Using the algebraic structure of RS codes and bivariate interpolation, the GS method has shown improved error correction capability compared to the traditional hard decision decoders. Based on the GS method, a multivariate interpolation decoding method is proposed for decoding interleaved RS (IRS) codes. Using this method all the RS codewords of the interleaved scheme are decoded simultaneously. In the presence of burst errors, the proposed method has improved correction capability compared to the GS method. This method is applied for decoding IRS codes when used as outer codes in concatenated code