An optimized initialization for LDPC decoding over GF(q) in impulsive noise environments

Modern navigation satellite communication has the characteristic of high transmitting rate. To avoid bit errors in data transmission, low density parity check (LDPC) codes are widely recognized as efficient ways for navigation communication. Conventionally, the LDPC decoding is applied for additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel and degrades severely while facing the impulsive noise. However, navigation communication often suffers from impulsive interference due to the occurrence of high amplitude “spikes”. At this time, the conventional Gaussian noise assumption is inadequate. The impulsive component of interference has been found to be significant which influences the reliability of transmitted information. Therefore the LDPC decoding algorithms for AWGN channel are not suitable for impulsive noise environments. Consider that LDPC codes over GF(q) perform better than binary LDPC in resisting burst errors for current navigation system, it is necessary to conduct research on LDPC codes over GF(q). In this paper, an optimized initialization by calculating posterior probabilities of received symbols is proposed for non-binary LDPC decoding on additive white Class A noise (AWAN) channel. To verify the performance of the proposed initialization, extensive experiments are performed in terms of convergence, validity, and robustness. Preliminary results demonstrate that the decoding algorithm with the optimized initialization for non-binary LDPC codes performs better than the competing methods and that of binary LDPC codes on AWAN channel.