E2E DC-CrossMPT: Cross-Attention Message-Passing Transformer for Joint Design and Decoding of Linear Block Codes

In this paper, we propose a novel deep learning-based framework for the joint design and decoding of linear block codes, the end-to-end deep coding cross-attention message-passing Transformer (E2E DC-CrossMPT). To improve linear block code design and decoding, we redesign the conventional error correction code (ECC) decoder, CrossMPT, to fit within an end-to-end framework. The redesigned decoder separately utilizes magnitude and syndrome vectors obtained from the received signals as inputs. It further employs one-hot encoding based syndrome embedding and incorporates a parity-check matrix into the output layers. Experimental results demonstrate that, across various code lengths and code rates, E2E DC-CrossMPT consistently outperforms both traditional decoding algorithms and a conventional end-to-end deep coding model in terms of decoding performance. Moreover, the codes designed by E2E DC-CrossMPT achieve superior error-correction capability compared with both traditional linear block codes and those designed by the conventional end-to-end deep coding model, while requiring lower computational complexity.