Some Soft-Decision Decoding Algorithms for Reed-Solomon Codes

In this paper we introduce three soft-decision decoding algorithms for Reed-Solomon (RS) codes. We compare them in terms of performance over both the AWGN and Rayleigh Fading Channels and in terms of complexity with a special emphasis on RS codes over IF16. The algorithms discussed are variants of well known algorithms for binary codes adapted to the multilevel nature of RS codes. All involve a re-ordering of the received symbols according to some reliability measure. The choice of reliability measure for our simulations is based on a comparison of three in terms of how they affect the codes’ performances.