Improved symbol value selection for symbol flipping-based non-binary LDPC decoding

Symbol flipping-based hard decision decoding for non-binary low-density parity check (LDPC) codes has attracted much attention due to low decoding complexity even though the error performance of the symbol flipping decoder is inferior to that of the soft decision decoders. Standard symbol flipping decoding involves two steps, selection of the symbol position to be flipped and selection of the flipped symbol value. In this paper, an improved symbol value selection algorithm is developed for symbol flipping-based non-binary LDPC decoding. The key idea of the proposed algorithm is to use the complete information on correlation among the code symbols, in addition to their initial reliabilities when value of the flipped symbol is decided. The proposed algorithm offers improved error performance over the existing approaches of flipped symbol value selection which are solely based on the initial symbol reliabilities, with only a non-significant increase in complexity. At the same time, the proposed algorithm is low in complexity compared to other symbol flipping-based LDPC decoding algorithms which use the information on correlation among the code symbols in selecting the flipped symbol value.