Non-uniform windowed decoding schedules for spatially coupled codes

Low-density parity-check convolutional (LDPCC) codes, also known as spatially coupled LDPC codes, can be decoded using a message passing algorithm. In order to limit decoding latency and complexity, windowed decoding can be applied. Updates within the window can be performed either in parallel or serially. However, simulation results show that uniform updating schedules do not provide the expected reduction in complexity when applied within the window. Hence we propose non-uniform schedules for updating the nodes based on measured improvements in the bit error rate. Nodes within the window that stop showing any improvement are excluded from the update list for the next iteration. This results in a reduction of up to 50% in complexity compared to uniform window schedules.