System and method for iterative decoding of Reed-Muller codes

A method for decoding of a Reed-Muller code comprising:

• generating a code bit vector and a log-bit probability vector based on a received coded signal using a first soft-output device;
• passing at least the log-bit probability vector to a second soft-output device;
• and
• generating an updated code bit vector and an updated log-bit probability vector based on the received coded signal and at least the log-bit probability vector.

A soft iterative decoding system comprising:

• two or more decoding blocks for processing coded information into a decoded bit vector and a decoded probability vector, each decoding block comprising:
• a soft-output device for processing the coded information according to a code word probability vector into a code bit information vector and an associated code bit reliability vector;
• and
• a Reed-Muller device for decoding the code bit information vector and the associated code bit reliability vector;
• and
• an assembler device between each decoding block for processing the code bit information vector and the associated code bit reliability vector from a previous decoding block into a codeword vector and an associated codeword reliability vector for a next decoding block.

A method of decoding Reed-Muller codes by passing message bits, the method comprising:

• computing message bit likelihoods for each bit in a bit sequence of a Reed-Muller coded signal;
• updating the code bit likelihoods according to the message bit likelihoods;
• and
• re-computing the message bit likelihoods according to the updated code bit likelihoods.

A iterative decoding system for decoding a received signal containing Reed-Muller encoded information, the system comprising:

• a sequence of decoding blocks for processing the received signal into a decoded signal, each decoding block comprising:
• a soft input device for processing the encoded information from the encoded signal into code bits and associated code bit likelihoods;
• and
• a reed-muller message passing device for processing the code bits and the associated code bit likelihoods into message bits and message bit likelihoods;
• connections between an output of the reed-muller message passing device and an input for a next soft input device in the sequence, wherein a sequentially last decoding block in the sequence produces an output.