Universal Maximum Likelihood (List) Decoding via Fast Vector-Matrix Multiplication

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Hauptverfasser: Ly, Hoang, Soljanin, Emina, Schleppy, Michael
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Ly, Hoang
Soljanin, Emina
Schleppy, Michael
author_facet Ly, Hoang
Soljanin, Emina
Schleppy, Michael
contents Maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding for arbitrary block codes remains fundamentally hard, with worst-case time complexity-measured by the total number of multiplications-being no better than straightforward exhaustive search, which requires $q^{k} n$ operations for an $[n,k]_q$ code. This paper introduces a simple, code-agnostic framework that reduces the worst-case complexity by a factor of $n$, down to $q^{k}$ operations, a highly desirable reduction in practice. The result holds for both linear and nonlinear block codes over general memoryless channels and under both hard-decision and soft-decision decoding. It naturally extends to intersymbol-interference (ISI) channels and ML list decoding with only a negligible increase in complexity. Our core insight is that, upon receipt of each sequence at the receiver, the conditional probability of that sequence for each codeword in the codebook (i.e., the \emph{likelihood}) can be expressed as the inner product of two carefully constructed vectors -- the first depending on the received sequence, and the second on that codeword itself. As a result, evaluating the likelihoods for all codewords in the codebook reduces to a single vector-matrix multiplication, and ML decoding (MLD) becomes the simple task of picking the maximum entry in the resulting vector. The only non-trivial cost lies in the vector-matrix product. However, our matrix construction allows the use of the Mailman algorithm to reduce this cost. This time reduction is achieved at the cost of high space complexity, requiring $\mathcal{O}(q^{k+1} n)$ space to store the pre-computed codebook matrix.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_21414
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Universal Maximum Likelihood (List) Decoding via Fast Vector-Matrix Multiplication
Ly, Hoang
Soljanin, Emina
Schleppy, Michael
Information Theory
Data Structures and Algorithms
Maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding for arbitrary block codes remains fundamentally hard, with worst-case time complexity-measured by the total number of multiplications-being no better than straightforward exhaustive search, which requires $q^{k} n$ operations for an $[n,k]_q$ code. This paper introduces a simple, code-agnostic framework that reduces the worst-case complexity by a factor of $n$, down to $q^{k}$ operations, a highly desirable reduction in practice. The result holds for both linear and nonlinear block codes over general memoryless channels and under both hard-decision and soft-decision decoding. It naturally extends to intersymbol-interference (ISI) channels and ML list decoding with only a negligible increase in complexity. Our core insight is that, upon receipt of each sequence at the receiver, the conditional probability of that sequence for each codeword in the codebook (i.e., the \emph{likelihood}) can be expressed as the inner product of two carefully constructed vectors -- the first depending on the received sequence, and the second on that codeword itself. As a result, evaluating the likelihoods for all codewords in the codebook reduces to a single vector-matrix multiplication, and ML decoding (MLD) becomes the simple task of picking the maximum entry in the resulting vector. The only non-trivial cost lies in the vector-matrix product. However, our matrix construction allows the use of the Mailman algorithm to reduce this cost. This time reduction is achieved at the cost of high space complexity, requiring $\mathcal{O}(q^{k+1} n)$ space to store the pre-computed codebook matrix.
title Universal Maximum Likelihood (List) Decoding via Fast Vector-Matrix Multiplication
topic Information Theory
Data Structures and Algorithms
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.21414