Augmented decoders for LDPC codes

The performance of a belief propagation decoder for low-density parity-check codes is limited by the presence of trapping sets in the code’s graph. This leads to an error floor at higher signal-to-noise ratios. We propose the use of an augmented decoder which operates by iteratively decoding on a set of graphs which have a subset of repeated check nodes. We compare the augmented decoder to other modified belief propagation decoders that have been presented in the literature. We show that for all the codes considered, the augmented decoder yields the best frame error rate in the error floor region.