Maximum-likelihood decoding of Reed-Solomon Codes is NP-hard

Maximum-likelihood decoding is one of the central algorithmic problems in coding theory. It has been known for over 25 years that maximum-likelihood decoding of general linear codes is NP-hard. Nevertheless, it was so far unknown whether maximum- likelihood decoding remains hard for any specific family of codes with nontrivial algebraic structure. In this paper, we prove that maximum-likelihood decoding is NP-hard for the family of Reed-Solomon codes. We moreover show that maximum-likelihood decoding of Reed-Solomon codes remains hard even with unlimited preprocessing, thereby strengthening a result of Bruck and Naor.Comment: 16 pages, no figure

Iterative Algebraic Soft-Decision List Decoding of Reed-Solomon Codes

In this paper, we present an iterative soft-decision decoding algorithm for Reed-Solomon codes offering both complexity and performance advantages over previously known decoding algorithms. Our algorithm is a list decoding algorithm which combines two powerful soft decision decoding techniques which were previously regarded in the literature as competitive, namely, the Koetter-Vardy algebraic soft-decision decoding algorithm and belief-propagation based on adaptive parity check matrices, recently proposed by Jiang and Narayanan. Building on the Jiang-Narayanan algorithm, we present a belief-propagation based algorithm with a significant reduction in computational complexity. We introduce the concept of using a belief-propagation based decoder to enhance the soft-input information prior to decoding with an algebraic soft-decision decoder. Our algorithm can also be viewed as an interpolation multiplicity assignment scheme for algebraic soft-decision decoding of Reed-Solomon codes.Comment: Submitted to IEEE for publication in Jan 200

On the Complexity of Exact Maximum-Likelihood Decoding for Asymptotically Good Low Density Parity Check Codes: A New Perspective

The problem of exact maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding of general linear codes is well-known to be NP-hard. In this paper, we show that exact ML decoding of a class of asymptotically good low density parity check codes — expander codes — over binary symmetric channels (BSCs) is possible with an average-case polynomial complexity. This offers a new way of looking at the complexity issue of exact ML decoding for communication systems where the randomness in channel plays a fundamental central role. More precisely, for any bit-flipping probability p in a nontrivial range, there exists a rate region of non-zero support and a family of asymptotically good codes which achieve error probability exponentially decaying in coding length n while admitting exact ML decoding in average-case polynomial time. As p approaches zero, this rate region approaches the Shannon channel capacity region. Similar results can be extended to AWGN channels, suggesting it may be feasible to eliminate the error floor phenomenon associated with belief-propagation decoding of LDPC codes in the high SNR regime. The derivations are based on a hierarchy of ML certificate decoding algorithms adaptive to the channel realization. In this process, we propose an efficient O(n^2) new ML certificate algorithm based on the max-flow algorithm. Moreover, exact ML decoding of the considered class of codes constructed from LDPC codes with regular left degree, of which the considered expander codes are a special case, remains NP-hard; thus giving an interesting contrast between the worst-case and average-case complexities

Efficient Maximum-Likelihood Decoding of Linear Block Codes on Binary Memoryless Channels

In this work, we consider efficient maximum-likelihood decoding of linear block codes for small-to-moderate block lengths. The presented approach is a branch-and-bound algorithm using the cutting-plane approach of Zhang and Siegel (IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 2012) for obtaining lower bounds. We have compared our proposed algorithm to the state-of-the-art commercial integer program solver CPLEX, and for all considered codes our approach is faster for both low and high signal-to-noise ratios. For instance, for the benchmark (155,64) Tanner code our algorithm is more than 11 times as fast as CPLEX for an SNR of 1.0 dB on the additive white Gaussian noise channel. By a small modification, our algorithm can be used to calculate the minimum distance, which we have again verified to be much faster than using the CPLEX solver.Comment: Submitted to 2014 International Symposium on Information Theory. 5 Pages. Accepte

The complexity of information set decoding

Information set decoding is an algorithm for decoding any linear code. Expressions for the complexity of the procedure that are logarithmically exact for virtually all codes are presented. The expressions cover the cases of complete minimum distance decoding and bounded hard-decision decoding, as well as the important case of bounded soft-decision decoding. It is demonstrated that these results are vastly better than those for the trivial algorithms of searching through all codewords or through all syndromes, and are significantly better than those for any other general algorithm currently known. For codes over large symbol fields, the procedure tends towards a complexity that is subexponential in the symbol size

Mathematical Programming Decoding of Binary Linear Codes: Theory and Algorithms

Mathematical programming is a branch of applied mathematics and has recently been used to derive new decoding approaches, challenging established but often heuristic algorithms based on iterative message passing. Concepts from mathematical programming used in the context of decoding include linear, integer, and nonlinear programming, network flows, notions of duality as well as matroid and polyhedral theory. This survey article reviews and categorizes decoding methods based on mathematical programming approaches for binary linear codes over binary-input memoryless symmetric channels.Comment: 17 pages, submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. Published July 201