This paper considers the classical error correcting problem which is frequently discussed in coding theory. We wish to recover an input vector f ∈ Rn from corrupted measurements y = Af + e. Here, A is an m by n (coding) matrix and e is an arbitrary and unknown vector of errors. Is it possible to recover f exactly from the data y? We prove that under suitable conditions on the coding matrix A, the input f is the unique solution to the ℓ1-minimization problem (‖x‖ℓ1:= i |xi|) min g∈R n ‖y − Ag‖ℓ1 provided that the support of the vector of errors is not too large, ‖e‖ℓ0: = |{i: ei ̸= 0} | ≤ ρ · m for some ρ> 0. In short, f can be recovered exactly by solving a simple convex optimization problem (which one can recast as a linear program). In addition, numerical experiments suggest that this recovery procedure works unreasonably well; f is recovered exactly even in situations where a significant fraction of the output is corrupted. This work is related to the problem of finding sparse solutions to vastly underdetermined systems of linear equations. There are also significant connections with the problem of recovering signals from highly incomplete measurements. In fact, the results introduced in this paper improve on our earlier work [5]. Finally, underlying the success of ℓ1 is a crucial property we call the uniform uncertainty principle that we shall describe in detail.

A new method is given for performing approximate maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding of an arbitrary binary linear code based on observations received from any discrete memoryless symmetric channel. The decoding algorithm is based on a linear programming (LP) relaxation that is defined by a factor graph or parity-check representation of the code. The resulting “LP decoder” generalizes our previous work on turbo-like codes. A precise combinatorial characterization of when the LP decoder succeeds is provided, based on pseudocodewords associated with the factor graph. Our definition of a pseudocodeword unifies other such notions known for iterative algorithms, including “stopping sets, ” “irreducible closed walks, ” “trellis cycles, ” “deviation sets, ” and “graph covers.” The fractional distance ��— ™ of a code is introduced, which is a lower bound on the classical distance. It is shown that the efficient LP decoder will correct up to ��— ™ P I errors and that there are codes with ��— ™ a @ I A. An efficient algorithm to compute the fractional distance is presented. Experimental evidence shows a similar performance on low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes between LP decoding and the min-sum and sum-product algorithms. Methods for tightening the LP relaxation to improve performance are also provided.

This paper discusses the Slepian–Wolf problem of distributed near-lossless compression of correlated sources. We introduce practical new tools for communicating at all rates in the achievable region. The technique employs a simple “sourcesplitting” strategy that does not require common sources of randomness at the encoders and decoders. This approach allows for pipelined encoding and decoding so that the system operates with the complexity of a single user encoder and decoder. Moreover, when this splitting approach is used in conjunction with iterative decoding methods, it produces a significant simplification of the decoding process. We demonstrate this approach for synthetically generated data. Finally, we consider the Slepian–Wolf problem when linear codes are used as syndrome-formers and consider a linear programming relaxation to maximum-likelihood (ML) sequence decoding. We note that the fractional vertices of the relaxed polytope compete with the optimal solution in a manner analogous to that observed when the “min-sum ” iterative decoding algorithm is applied. This relaxation exhibits the ML-certificate property: if an integral solution is found, it is the ML solution. For symmetric binary joint distributions, we show that selecting easily constructable “expander”-style low-density parity check codes (LDPCs) as syndrome-formers admits a positive error exponent and therefore provably good performance.

We give a linear programming (LP) decoder that achieves the capacity (optimal rate) of a wide range of probabilistic binary communication channels. This is the first such result for LP decoding. More generally, as far as the authors are aware this is the first known polynomial-time capacity-achieving decoder with the maximum-likelihood (ML) certificate property---where output codewords come with a proof of optimality.

This paper studies the problem of recovering a non-negative sparse signal x ∈ Rn from highly corrupted linear measurements y = Ax + e ∈ Rm, where e is an unknown error vector whose nonzero entries may be unbounded. Motivated by an observation from face recognition in computer vision, this paper proves that for highly correlated (and possibly overcomplete) dictionaries A, any non-negative, sufficiently sparse signal x can be recovered by solving an ℓ1-minimization problem: min ‖x‖1 + ‖e‖1 subject to y = Ax + e. More precisely, if the fraction ρ of errors is bounded away from one and the support of x grows sublinearly in the dimension m of the observation, then as m goes to infinity, the above ℓ1-minimization succeeds for all signals x and almost all sign-and-support patterns of e. This result suggests that accurate recovery of sparse signals is possible and computationally feasible even with nearly 100 % of the observations corrupted. The proof relies on a careful characterization of the faces of a convex polytope spanned together by the standard crosspolytope and a set of iid Gaussian vectors with nonzero mean and small variance, which we call the “cross-and-bouquet ” model. Simulations and experimental results corroborate the findings, and suggest extensions to the result.

This paper discusses a stylized communications problem where one wishes to transmit a real-valued signal x ∈ R n (a block of n pieces of information) to a remote receiver. We ask whether it is possible to transmit this information reliably when a fraction of the transmitted codeword is corrupted by arbitrary gross errors, and when in addition, all the entries of the codeword are contaminated by smaller errors (e.g. quantization errors). We show that if one encodes the information as Ax where A ∈ R m×n (m ≥ n) is a suitable coding matrix, there are two decoding schemes that allow the recovery of the block of n pieces of information x with nearly the same accuracy as if no gross errors occur upon transmission (or equivalently as if one has an oracle supplying perfect information about the sites and amplitudes of the gross errors). Moreover, both decoding strategies are very concrete and only involve solving simple convex optimization programs, either a linear program or a secondorder cone program. We complement our study with numerical simulations showing that the encoder/decoder pair performs remarkably well.

Abstract—We investigate the structure of the polytope underlying the linear programming (LP) decoder introduced by Feldman, Karger, and Wainwright. We first show that for expander codes, every fractional pseudocodeword always has at least a constant fraction of nonintegral bits. We then prove that for expander codes, the active set of any fractional pseudocodeword is smaller by a constant fraction than that of any codeword. We further exploit these geometrical properties to devise an improved decoding algorithm with the same order of complexity as LP decoding that provably performs better. The method is very simple: it first applies ordinary LP decoding, and when it fails, it proceeds by guessing facets of the polytope, and then resolving the linear program on these facets. While the LP decoder succeeds only if the ML codeword has the highest likelihood over all pseudocodewords, we prove that the proposed algorithm, when applied to suitable expander codes, succeeds unless there exists a certain number of pseudocodewords, all adjacent to the ML codeword on the LP decoding polytope, and with higher likelihood than the ML codeword. We then describe an extended algorithm, still with polynomial complexity, that succeeds as long as there are at most polynomially many pseudocodewords above the ML codeword. Index Terms—Belief propagation, bit guessing, decimation, error-correcting codes, iterative decoding, linear programming (LP), low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, linear programming (LP) decoding, pseudocodewords. I.

Linear programming decoding for low-density parity check codes (and related domains such as compressed sensing) has received increased attention over recent years because of its practical performance —coming close to that of iterative decoding algorithms — and its amenability to finite-blocklength analysis. Several works starting with the work of Feldman et al. showed how to analyze LP decoding using properties of expander graphs. This line of analysis works for only low error rates, about a couple of orders of magnitude lower than the empirically observed performance. It is possible to do better for the case of random noise, as shown by Daskalakis et al. and Koetter and Vontobel. Building on work of Koetter and Vontobel, we obtain a novel understanding of LP decoding, which allows us to establish a 0.05-fraction of correctable errors for rate-1/2 codes; this comes very close to the performance of iterative decoders and is significantly higher than the best previously noted correctable bit error rate for LP decoding. Unlike other techniques, our analysis directly works with the primal linear program and exploits an explicit connection between LP decoding and message passing algorithms. An interesting byproduct of our method is a notion of a “locally optimal ” solution that we show to always be globally optimal (i.e., it is the nearest codeword). Such a solution can in fact be found in near-linear time by a “re-weighted” version of the min-sum algorithm, obviating the need for linear programming. Our analysis implies, in particular, that this re-weighted version of the min-sum decoder corrects up to a 0.05-fraction of errors.

Abstract not found

Abstract—We initiate the probabilistic analysis of linear programming (LP) decoding of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. Specifically, we show that for a random LDPC code ensemble, the linear programming decoder of Feldman et al. succeeds in correcting a constant fraction of errors with high probability. The fraction of correctable errors guaranteed by our analysis surpasses previous nonasymptotic results for LDPC codes, and in particular, exceeds the best previous finite-length result on LP decoding by a factor greater than ten. This improvement stems in part from our analysis of probabilistic bit-flipping channels, as opposed to adversarial channels. At the core of our analysis is a novel combinatorial characterization of LP decoding success, based on the notion of a flow on the Tanner graph of the code. An interesting by-product of our analysis is to establish the existence of “probabilistic expansion ” in random bipartite graphs, in which one requires only that almost every (as opposed to every) set of a certain size expands, for sets much larger than in the classical worst case setting. Index Terms—Binary-symmetric channel (BSC), channel coding, error-control coding, expanders, factor graphs, linear programming decoding, low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, randomized algorithms, sum–product algorithm. I.