New Identification and Decoding Techniques for Low-Density Parity-Check Codes

Error-correction coding schemes are indispensable for high-capacity high data-rate communication systems nowadays. Among various channel coding schemes, low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes introduced by pioneer Robert G. Gallager are prominent due to the capacity-approaching and superior error-correcting properties. There is no hard constraint on the code rate of LDPC codes. Consequently, it is ideal to incorporate LDPC codes with various code rate and codeword length in the adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) systems which change the encoder and the modulator adaptively to improve the system throughput. In conventional AMC systems, a dedicated control channel is assigned to coordinate the encoder/decoder changes. A questions then rises: if the AMC system still works when such a control channel is absent. This work gives positive answer to this question by investigating various scenarios consisting of different modulation schemes, such as quadrature-amplitude modulation (QAM), frequency-shift keying (FSK), and different channels, such as additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels and fading channels. On the other hand, LDPC decoding is usually carried out by iterative belief-propagation (BP) algorithms. As LDPC codes become prevalent in advanced communication and storage systems, low-complexity LDPC decoding algorithms are favored in practical applications. In the conventional BP decoding algorithm, the stopping criterion is to check if all the parities are satisfied. This single rule may not be able to identify the undecodable blocks, as a result, the decoding time and power consumption are wasted for executing unnecessary iterations. In this work, we propose a new stopping criterion to identify the undecodable blocks in the early stage of the iterative decoding process. Furthermore, in the conventional BP decoding algorithm, the variable (check) nodes are updated in parallel. It is known that the number of iterations can be reduced by the serial scheduling algorithm. The informed dynamic scheduling (IDS) algorithms were proposed in the existing literatures to further reduce the number of iterations. However, the computational complexity involved in finding the update node in the existing IDS algorithms would not be neglected. In this work, we propose a new efficient IDS scheme which can provide better performance-complexity trade-off compared to the existing IDS ones. In addition, the iterative decoding threshold, which is used for differentiating which LDPC code is better, is investigated in this work. A family of LDPC codes, called LDPC convolutional codes, has drawn a lot of attentions from researchers in recent years due to the threshold saturation phenomenon. The IDT for an LDPC convolutional code may be computationally demanding when the termination length goes to thousand or even approaches infinity, especially for AWGN channels. In this work, we propose a fast IDT estimation algorithm which can greatly reduce the complexity of the IDT calculation for LDPC convolutional codes with arbitrary large termination length (including infinity). By utilizing our new IDT estimation algorithm, the IDTs for LDPC convolutional codes with arbitrary large termination length (including infinity) can be quickly obtained

Error-correction coding for high-density magnetic recording channels.

Finally, a promising algorithm which combines RS decoding algorithm with LDPC decoding algorithm together is investigated, and a reduced-complexity modification has been proposed, which not only improves the decoding performance largely, but also guarantees a good performance in high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), in which area an error floor is experienced by LDPC codes.The soft-decision RS decoding algorithms and their performance on magnetic recording channels have been researched, and the algorithm implementation and hardware architecture issues have been discussed. Several novel variations of KV algorithm such as soft Chase algorithm, re-encoded Chase algorithm and forward recursive algorithm have been proposed. And the performance of nested codes using RS and LDPC codes as component codes have been investigated for bursty noise magnetic recording channels.Future high density magnetic recoding channels (MRCs) are subject to more noise contamination and intersymbol interference, which make the error-correction codes (ECCs) become more important. Recent research of replacement of current Reed-Solomon (RS)-coded ECC systems with low-density parity-check (LDPC)-coded ECC systems obtains a lot of research attention due to the large decoding gain for LDPC-coded systems with random noise. In this dissertation, systems aim to maintain the RS-coded system using recent proposed soft-decision RS decoding techniques are investigated and the improved performance is presented

Partially Coupled Codes for TB-based Transmission

In this thesis, we mainly investigate the design of partially coupled codes for transport block (TB) based transmission protocol adopted in 4G/5G mobile network standards. In this protocol, an information sequence in a TB is segmented into multiple code blocks (CBs) and each CB is protected by a channel codeword independently. It is inefficient in terms of transmit power and spectrum efficiency because any erroneous CB in a TB leads to the retransmission of the whole TB. An important research problem related to this TB-based transmission is how to improve the TB error rate (TBER) performance so that the number of retransmissions reduces. To tackle this challenge, we present a class of spatial coupling techniques called partial coupling in the TB encoding operation, which has two subclasses: partial information coupled (PIC) and partial parity coupling (PPC). To be specific, the coupling is performed such that a fraction of the information/parity sequence of one component code at the current CB is used as the input of the component encoder at the next CB, leading to improved TBER performance. One of the appealing features of partial coupling (both PIC and PPC) is that the coupling can be applied to any component codes without changing their encoding and decoding architectures, making them compatible with the TB-based transmission protocol. The main body of this thesis consists of two parts. In the first part, we apply both PIC and PPC to turbo codes. We investigate various coupling designs and analysis the performance of the partially coupled turbo codes over the binary erasure channel via density evolution (DE). Both simulation results and DE analysis show that such a class of codes can approach channel capacity with a large blocklength. In the second part, we construct PIC-polar codes. We show that PIC can effectively improve the error performance of finite-length polar codes by utilizing the channel polarization phenomenon. The DE-based performance analysis is also conducted. For both turbo codes and polar codes, we have shown that the partially coupled codes have significant performance gain over their uncoupled counterpart, demonstrating the effectiveness of the partial coupling

Applications of iterative decoding to magnetic recording channels.

Finally, Q-ary LDPC (Q-LDPC) codes are considered for MRCs. Belief propagation decoding for binary LDPC codes is extended to Q-LDPC codes and a reduced-complexity decoding algorithm for Q-LDPC codes is developed. Q-LDPC coded systems perform very well with random noise as well as with burst erasures. Simulations show that Q-LDPC systems outperform RS systems.Secondly, binary low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are proposed for MRCs. Random binary LDPC codes, finite-geometry LDPC codes and irregular LDPC codes are considered. With belief propagation decoding, LDPC systems are shown to have superior performance over current Reed-Solomon (RS) systems at the range possible for computer simulation. The issue of RS-LDPC concatenation is also addressed.Three coding schemes are investigated for magnetic recording systems. Firstly, block turbo codes, including product codes and parallel block turbo codes, are considered on MRCs. Product codes with other types of component codes are briefly discussed.Magnetic recoding channels (MRCs) are subject to noise contamination and error-correcting codes (ECCs) are used to keep the integrity of the data. Conventionally, hard decoding of the ECCs is performed. In this dissertation, systems using soft iterative decoding techniques are presented and their improved performance is established

Finite-Length Scaling Laws for Spatially-Coupled LDPC Codes

This thesis concerns predicting the finite-length error-correcting performance of spatially-coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) code ensembles over the binary erasure channel. SC-LDPC codes are a very powerful class of codes; their use in practical communication systems, however, requires the system designer to specify a considerable number of code and decoder parameters, all of which affect both the code’s error-correcting capability and the system’s memory, energy, and latency requirements. Navigating the space of the associated trade-offs is challenging. The aim of the finite-length scaling laws proposed in this thesis is to facilitate code and decoder parameter optimization by providing a way to predict the code’s error-rate performance without resorting to Monte-Carlo simulations for each combination of code/decoder and channel parameters.First, we tackle the problem of predicting the frame, bit, and block error rate of SC-LDPC code ensembles over the binary erasure channel under both belief propagation (BP) decoding and sliding window decoding when the maximum number of decoding iterations is unlimited. The scaling laws we develop provide very accurate predictions of the error rates.Second, we derive a scaling law to accurately predict the bit and block error rate of SC-LDPC code ensembles with doping, a technique relevant for streaming applications for limiting the inherent rate loss of SC-LDPC codes. We then use the derived scaling law for code parameter optimization and show that doping can offer a way to achieve better transmission rates for the same target bit error rate than is possible without doping.Last, we address the most challenging (and most practically relevant) case where the maximum number of decoding iterations is limited, both for BP and sliding window decoding. The resulting predictions are again very accurate.Together, these contributions make finite-length SC-LDPC code and decoder parameter optimization via finite-length scaling laws feasible for the design of practical communication systems

새로운 소실 채널을 위한 자기동형 군 복호기 및 부분 접속 복구 부호 및 일반화된 근 프로토그래프 LDPC 부호의 설계

학위논문 (박사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 공과대학 전기·컴퓨터공학부, 2019. 2. 노종선.In this dissertation, three main contributions are given asi) new two-stage automorphism group decoders (AGD) for cyclic codes in the erasure channel, ii) new constructions of binary and ternary locally repairable codes (LRCs) using cyclic codes and existing LRCs, and iii) new constructions of high-rate generalized root protograph (GRP) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes for a nonergodic block interference and partially regular (PR) LDPC codes for follower noise jamming (FNJ), are considered. First, I propose a new two-stage AGD (TS-AGD) for cyclic codes in the erasure channel. Recently, error correcting codes in the erasure channel have drawn great attention for various applications such as distributed storage systems and wireless sensor networks, but many of their decoding algorithms are not practical because they have higher decoding complexity and longer delay. Thus, the AGD for cyclic codes in the erasure channel was introduced, which has good erasure decoding performance with low decoding complexity. In this research, I propose new TS-AGDs for cyclic codes in the erasure channel by modifying the parity check matrix and introducing the preprocessing stage to the AGD scheme. The proposed TS-AGD is analyzed for the perfect codes, BCH codes, and maximum distance separable (MDS) codes. Through numerical analysis, it is shown that the proposed decoding algorithm has good erasure decoding performance with lower decoding complexity than the conventional AGD. For some cyclic codes, it is shown that the proposed TS-AGD achieves the perfect decoding in the erasure channel, that is, the same decoding performance as the maximum likelihood (ML) decoder. For MDS codes, TS-AGDs with the expanded parity check matrix and the submatrix inversion are also proposed and analyzed. Second, I propose new constructions of binary and ternary LRCs using cyclic codes and existing two LRCs for distributed storage system. For a primitive work, new constructions of binary and ternary LRCs using cyclic codes and their concatenation are proposed. Some of proposed binary LRCs with Hamming weights 4, 5, and 6 are optimal in terms of the upper bounds. In addition, the similar method of the binary case is applied to construct the ternary LRCs with good parameters. Also, new constructions of binary LRCs with large Hamming distance and disjoint repair groups are proposed. The proposed binary linear LRCs constructed by using existing binary LRCs are optimal or near-optimal in terms of the bound with disjoint repair group. Last, I propose new constructions of high-rate GRP LDPC codes for a nonergodic block interference and anti-jamming PR LDPC codes for follower jamming. The proposed high-rate GRP LDPC codes are based on nonergodic two-state binary symmetric channel with block interference and Nakagami-$m$ block fading. In these channel environments, GRP LDPC codes have good performance approaching to the theoretical limit in the channel with one block interference, where their performance is shown by the channel threshold or the channel outage probability. In the proposed design, I find base matrices using the protograph extrinsic information transfer (PEXIT) algorithm. Also, the proposed new constructions of anti-jamming partially regular LDPC codes is based on follower jamming on the frequency-hopped spread spectrum (FHSS). For a channel environment, I suppose follower jamming with random dwell time and Rayleigh block fading environment with M-ary frequnecy shift keying (MFSK) modulation. For a coding perspective, an anti-jamming LDPC codes against follower jamming are introduced. In order to optimize the jamming environment, the partially regular structure and corresponding density evolution schemes are used. A series of simulations show that the proposed codes outperforms the 802.16e standard in the presence of follower noise jamming.이 논문에서는, i) 소실 채널에서 순환 부호의 새로운 이단 자기동형 군 복호기 , ii) 분산 저장 시스템을 위한 순환 부호 및 기존의 부분 접속 복구 부호(LRC)를 이용한 이진 혹은 삼진 부분 접속 복구 부호 설계법, 및 iii) 블록 간섭 환경을 위한 고부효율의 일반화된 근 프로토그래프(generalized root protograph, GRP) LDPC 부호 및 추적 재밍 환경을 위한 항재밍 부분 균일 (anti-jamming paritally regular, AJ-PR) LDPC 부호가 연구되었다. 첫번째로, 소실 채널에서 순환 부호의 새로운 이단 자기동형 군 복호기를 제안하였다. 최근 분산 저장 시스템 혹은 무선 센서 네트워크 등의 응용으로 인해 소실 채널에서의 오류 정정 부호 기법이 주목받고 있다. 그러나 많은 복호기 알고리즘은 높은 복호 복잡도 및 긴 지연으로 인해 실용적이지 못하다. 따라서 낮은 복호 복잡도 및 높은 성능을 보일 수 있는 순환 부호에서 이단 자기 동형 군 복호기가 제안되었다. 본 연구에서는 패리티 검사 행렬을 변형하고, 전처리 과정을 도입한 새로운 이단 자기동형 군 복호기를 제안한다. 제안한 복호기는 perfect 부호, BCH 부호 및 최대 거리 분리 (maximum distance separable, MDS) 부호에 대해서 분석되었다. 수치 분석을 통해, 제안된 복호 알고리즘은 기존의 자기 동형 군 복호기보다 낮은 복잡도를 보이며, 몇몇의 순환 부호 및 소실 채널에서 최대 우도 (maximal likelihood, ML)과 같은 수준의 성능임을 보인다. MDS 부호의 경우, 확장된 패리티검사 행렬 및 작은 크기의 행렬의 역연산을 활용하였을 경우의 성능을 분석한다. 두 번째로, 분산 저장 시스템을 위한 순환 부호 및 기존의 부분 접속 복구 부호 (LRC)를 이용한 이진 혹은 삼진 부분 접속 복구 부호 설계법을 제안하였다. 초기 연구로서, 순환 부호 및 연접을 활용한 이진 및 삼진 LRC 설계 기법이 연구되었다. 최소 해밍 거리가 4,5, 혹은 6인 제안된 이진 LRC 중 일부는 상한과 비교해 보았을 때 최적 설계임을 증명하였다. 또한, 비슷한 방법을 적용하여 좋은 파라미터의 삼진 LRC를 설계할 수 있었다. 그 외에 기존의 LRC를 활용하여 큰 해밍 거리의 새로운 LRC를 설계하는 방법을 제안하였다. 제안된 LRC는 분리된 복구 군 조건에서 최적이거나 최적에 가까운 값을 보였다. 마지막으로, GRP LDPC 부호는 Nakagami-$m$ 블록 페이딩 및 블록 간섭이 있는 두 상태의 이진 대칭 채널을 기반으로 한다. 이러한 채널 환경에서 GRP LDPC 부호는 하나의 블록 간섭이 발생했을 경우, 이론적 성능에 가까운 좋은 성능을 보여준다. 이러한 이론 값은 채널 문턱값이나 채널 outage 확률을 통해 검증할 수 있다. 제안된 설계에서는, 변형된 PEXIT 알고리즘을 활용하여 기초 행렬을 설계한다. 또한 AJ-PR LDPC 부호는 주파수 도약 환경에서 발생하는 추적 재밍이 있는 환경을 기반으로 한다. 채널 환경으로 MFSK 변복조 방식의 레일리 블록 페이딩 및 무작위한 지속 시간이 있는 재밍 환경을 가정한다. 이러한 재밍 환경으로 최적화하기 위해, 부분 균일 구조 및 해당되는 밀도 진화 (density evolution, DE) 기법이 활용된다. 여러 시뮬레이션 결과는 추적 재밍이 존재하는 환경에서 제안된 부호가 802.16e에 사용되었던 LDPC 부호보다 성능이 우수함을 보여준다.Contents Abstract Contents List of Tables List of Figures 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background 1.2 Overview of Dissertation 1.3 Notations 2 Preliminaries 2.1 IED and AGD for Erasure Channel 2.1.1 Iterative Erasure Decoder 2.1.1 Automorphism Group Decoder 2.2. Binary Locally Repairable Codes for Distributed Storage System 2.2.1 Bounds and Optimalities of Binary LRCs 2.2.2 Existing Optimal Constructions of Binary LRCs 2.3 Channels with Block Interference and Jamming 2.3.1 Channels with Block Interference 2.3.2 Channels with Jamming with MFSK and FHSS Environment. 3 New Two-Stage Automorphism Group Decoders for Cyclic Codes in the Erasure Channel 3.1 Some Definitions 3.2 Modification of Parity Check Matrix and Two-Stage AGD 3.2.1 Modification of the Parity Check Matrix 3.2.2 A New Two-Stage AGD 3.2.3 Analysis of Modification Criteria for the Parity Check Matrix 3.2.4 Analysis of Decoding Complexity of TS-AGD 3.2.5 Numerical Analysis for Some Cyclic Codes 3.3 Construction of Parity Check Matrix and TS-AGD for Cyclic MDS Codes 3.3.1 Modification of Parity Check Matrix for Cyclic MDS Codes . 3.3.2 Proposed TS-AGD for Cyclic MDS Codes 3.3.3 Perfect Decoding by TS-AGD with Expanded Parity Check Matrix for Cyclic MDS Codes 3.3.4 TS-AGD with Submatrix Inversion for Cyclic MDS Codes . . 4 New Constructions of Binary and Ternary LRCs Using Cyclic Codes and Existing LRCs 4.1 Constructions of Binary LRCs Using Cyclic Codes 4.2 Constructions of Linear Ternary LRCs Using Cyclic Codes 4.3 Constructions of Binary LRCs with Disjoint Repair Groups Using Existing LRCs 4.4 New Constructions of Binary Linear LRCs with d ≥ 8 Using Existing LRCs 5 New Constructions of Generalized RP LDPC Codes for Block Interference and Partially Regular LDPC Codes for Follower Jamming 5.1 Generalized RP LDPC Codes for a Nonergodic BI 5.1.1 Minimum Blockwise Hamming Weight 5.1.2 Construction of GRP LDPC Codes 5.2 Asymptotic and Numerical Analyses of GRP LDPC Codes 5.2.1 Asymptotic Analysis of LDPC Codes 5.2.2 Numerical Analysis of Finite-Length LDPC Codes 5.3 Follower Noise Jamming with Fixed Scan Speed 5.4 Anti-Jamming Partially Regular LDPC Codes for Follower Noise Jamming 5.4.1 Simplified Channel Model and Corresponding Density Evolution 5.4.2 Construction of AJ-PR-LDPC Codes Based on DE 5.5 Numerical Analysis of AJ-PR LDPC Codes 6 Conclusion Abstract (In Korean)Docto