Low complexity Chase-2 decoding of concatenated codes

The concatenated codes are widely used in current communication systems, such as satellite communication systems and WiMAX system. The objective of this study was to present a low complexity iterative soft decoding algorithm for concatenated codes. The concatenation was between a Reed-Solomon (RS) code and recursive systematic convolutional (RSC) code. The reduction in computational complexity was achieved by simplifying the Chase-2 decoder for RS codes with limited usage of test patterns. The processing of soft information between inner and outer decoders was also discussed. Simulation results showed that the proposed algorithm could achieve a good trade-off between complexity and performance.