Adaptive cut generation for improved linear programming decoding of binary linear codes

Linear programming (LP) decoding approximates optimal maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding of a linear block code by relaxing the equivalent ML integer programming (IP) problem into a more easily solved LP problem. The LP problem is defined by a set of linear inequalities derived from the constraints represented by the rows of a parity-check matrix of the code. Adaptive linear programming (ALP) decoding significantly reduces the complexity of LP decoding by iteratively and adaptively adding necessary constraints in a sequence of smaller LP problems. Adaptive introduction of constraints derived from certain additional redundant parity check (RPC) constraints can further improve ALP performance. In this paper, we propose a new and effective algorithm to identify RPCs that produce linear constraints, referred to as “cuts,” that can eliminate non-ML solutions generated by the ALP decoder, often significantly improving the decoder error-rate performance. The cut-finding algorithm is based upon a specific transformation of an initial parity-check matrix of the linear block code. Simulation results for several low-density parity-check codes demonstrate that the modified ALP decoding algorithm significantly narrows the performance gap between LP decoding and ML decoding.