Published by : International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)

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Vol. 9 Issue 11, November-2020

Bit Flipping Decoders for LDPC Codes: A Short

Survey
Kurakula Madhukar
Department of Electrical, Electronics and Communication Engineering
GITAM Deemed to be University
Hyderabad, India.

Abstract— In the domain of wireless communication systems, associated with a variable node (VN) is a reliability metric of the
Error Control Coding schemes are one of the widely relied upon corresponding bit decision and depends on the binary-valued
or responsible methodology for securing the integrity and checksums of the VN’s connected check nodes (CNs). Although
authenticity of the data transmission process. In the last decade, BF algorithms are much simpler than the SPA, their
due to the advent of modern communication standards and their performance is far from optimal. To reduce the performance
wide range of services, there has been a resurgence of interest and gap, many variants of Gallager’s BF algorithms have been
support in the research community towards the conception of proposed. Most of them tried to improve the VN’s reliability
efficient and versatile error control coding techniques. Recent metric (the FF) and/or the method of selecting the flipped bits,
developments in the wireless communication-based technologies
achieving different degrees of bit error rate (BER) and
have witnessed the pliable nature of low-density parity-check
(LDPC) codes and their contributions which cannot be overstated.
convergence rate performance enhancements at the cost of
As of now, the decoding schemes based on LDPC codes have higher complexity. Figure 1 illustrates the general classification
emerged as one of the most promising and efective coding scheme of hard decision decoding approaches available for LDPC codes.
for addressing several key problems of reliable data
communication. In this article, comprehensive overview on the on
some well-known LDPC hard decision decoding algorithms is
provided. In addition, simulations carried out on various LDPC
decoding algorithms based on their performance is also presented.
Finally, at the end of this review, the scope for future prospects are
forecasted through discussions.

Keywords—LDPC; Hard Decision Decoding; Bit Flipping;

Finite Geometry;

I. INTRODUCTION
Error Control Coding (ECC) is one of the most widely
preferred methodology adopted by various communication and
memory systems to minimize the likelihood of errors [1]. In
general, many wireless communication-based applications Figure 1: Classification of Hard-Decision Decoders
strive to provide seamless high-quality service to its users by This manuscript attempts to give a short survey of some of
employing cost effective and much less computationally the most used bit flipping algorithms and its variants. Section II
intensive methods [2, 3]. In literature, several techniques have describes the various famous bit flipping algorithms and their
been investigated towards the design and development of mathematical representations. In Section III, we give simulation
promising coding schemes which can lower the data results of the discussed algorithms for various LDPC codes.
transmission and reading errors [4, 5] since the inception of the
information age [6]. Among various coding schemes, Low-
Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes are a special class of linear II. BIT FLIPPING ALGORITHMS
block codes which has become popular in recent years due to its
versatile error correcting characteristics [7] and near Shannon A. Notations
limit performance. Originally, LDPC discovered by Gallager [8] We denote a regular binary LDPC code with Variable Node
was initially brought in as a generalized version for various (VN) degree dv and Check Node (CN) degree dc by
applications by Mackay and his research team in [9, 10]. Since (𝑁, 𝐾)(𝑑𝑣 , 𝑑𝑐 ). The code is the null space of 𝑀 × 𝑁 parity
their reminiscence, LDPC codes are gaining traction as a popular check matrix 𝑯 = [𝐻𝑚𝑛 ]. Let 𝒖 be a codeword and assume that
choice of coding scheme in various wireless application areas Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulation is used so that
[11]. Basically, according to their error correcting mechanisms, codeword 𝒖 = [𝑢1 , 𝑢2 , ⋯ , 𝑢𝑁 ] is mapped into a bipolar
decoding algorithms for LDPC codes can be categorized into sequence 𝒙 = [𝑥1 , 𝑥2 , ⋯ , 𝑥𝑁 ]. This is sent through an Additive
two main classes, i.e., soft-decision [12] and hard-decision [13] White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel with two-sided power
based approaches. spectral density of 𝑁0 ⁄2 W/Hz. Let 𝒚 = [𝑦1 , 𝑦2 , ⋯ , 𝑦𝑁 ] be the
soft channel values obtained at the receiver’s coherent matched
Among the hard decision algorithms, bit-flipping (BF)
filer output. The sequence 𝒛 = [𝑧1 , 𝑧2 , ⋯ , 𝑧𝑁 ] is obtained by
algorithms flip one or a group of bits based on the values of the
taking hard decision on the components of 𝒚. Let 𝒖 ̂=
flipping functions (FFs) computed in each iteration. The FF

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 Published by : International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
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Vol. 9 Issue 11, November-2020

[𝑢̂1 , 𝑢̂2 , ⋯ , 𝑢̂𝑁 ] be the decoded binary sequence. The syndrome (4)
𝐸𝑛 = −𝛼|𝑦𝑛 | − ∑ 𝑤𝑚𝑛 (1 − 2𝑠𝑚 )
vector 𝒔 = [𝑠1 , 𝑠2 , ⋯ , 𝑠𝑀 ] is computed by 𝒔 = 𝒖 ̂ 𝑯𝑇 (𝑚𝑜𝑑2).
𝑚𝜖ℳ(𝑛)
Also, we denote the nth VN by 𝑣𝑛 and mth CN by 𝑐𝑚 . Let ℳ(𝑛)
denote the set of indices of the neighboring CNs of 𝑣𝑛 and
𝒩(𝑚) denote the set of indices of the neighboring VNs of 𝑐𝑚 . where 𝑤𝑚𝑛 = min |𝑦𝑛′ | and 𝛼 > 0.
𝑛′𝜖𝒩(𝑚)\𝑛
B. Generic BF Decoding Algorithm
A BF decoding algorithm has four important parameters: 𝑙, G. Gradient Descent Bit Flipping (GDBF)
the iteration number; 𝑙𝑚𝑎𝑥 , the maximum iteration number; 𝐸𝑛 , For Gradient Descent BF (GDBF) [17], the FF is
the FF; and ℬ, the index set of flipped bits (FB). The algorithm
performs the computation of 𝐸𝑛 and generating the FB set ℬ. ̂ 𝑛 ) − ∑ (1 − 2𝑠𝑚 )
𝐸𝑛 = −𝑦𝑛(1 − 2𝑢 (5)
The algorithm steps are given as follows: 𝑚𝜖ℳ(𝑛)

H. Flipped Bit Selection Rules

For all the above algorithms, only the bits related to VN
having the largest 𝐸𝑛 value is (are) flipped in each iteration.
Thus, the FB set is

ℬ = {𝑛|𝑛 = 𝑎𝑟𝑔 max 𝐸𝑖 } (6)

𝑖

The simplest FB selection rule for flipping multiple bits to

An FF is also called as cost function or inversion function. It increase the convergence is
helps to take a tentative decision on VN. Given FF values and
FB rules, we select a set of VNs and flip the corresponding bits ℬ = {𝑛|𝐸𝑛 ≥ 𝛿} (7)
whose FF values exceed a threshold.

C. Gallager Decoding where 𝛿 is the threshold obtained from simulations. The

Gallager proposed a simple bit flipping algorithm [8] whose optimal value of the threshold is derived by Gallager in [8].
FF is given as III. SIMULATION RESULTS
𝐸𝑛 = − ∑ (1 − 2𝑠𝑚 ) (1)
In this section, we will see the performance of the decoding
𝑚𝜖ℳ(𝑛) algorithms discussed in the previous section for Euclidean
geometry (EG) based LDPC codes, a class of finite geometry
(FG) LDPC codes [14]. The code considered in our simulations
D. Weighted Bit Flipping (WBF) is a (1023,781)(32,32) EG-LDPC code whose code rate is
0.763 with a very high node degree.
For Weighted Bit Flipping (WBF) decoding [14], the FF is

𝐸𝑛 = − ∑ 𝑤𝑚𝑛 (1 − 2𝑠𝑚 ) (2)

𝑚𝜖ℳ(𝑛)

where 𝑤𝑚𝑛 = ′min |𝑦𝑛′ |.

𝑛 𝜖𝒩(𝑚)

E. Modified Weighted Bit Flipping (MWBF)

For Modified WBF (MWBF) [15], the FF is

𝐸𝑛 = −𝛼|𝑦𝑛 | − ∑ 𝑤𝑚𝑛 (1 − 2𝑠𝑚 ) (3)

𝑚𝜖ℳ(𝑛)

Figure 2: BER performance of several bit flipping decoders for (1023,781)

where 𝑤𝑚𝑛 = ′min |𝑦𝑛′ | and 𝛼 > 0. EG-LDPC code.
𝑛 𝜖𝒩(𝑚)
Figure 2 shows the Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of
F. Improved Modified Weighted Bit Flipping (IMWBF) Gallager decoder (BF), WBF, IMWBF and GDBF respectively
For Improved MWBF (IMWBF) [16], the FF is for a (1023,781) EG-LDPC code. Since MWBF and IMWBF are
almost similar, BER performance of MWBF is not shown. From

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 Published by : International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
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Vol. 9 Issue 11, November-2020

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