Finite-Length Scaling and Finite-Length Shift for Low-Density Parity-Check Codes

Consider communication over the binary erasure channel BEC using random low-density parity-check codes with finite-blocklength n from `standard' ensembles. We show that large error events is conveniently described within a scaling theory, and explain how to estimate heuristically their effect. Among other quantities, we consider the finite length threshold e(n), defined by requiring a block error probability P_B = 1/2. For ensembles with minimum variable degree larger than two, the following expression is argued to hold e(n) = e -e_1 n^{-2/3} +\Theta(n^{-1}) with a calculable shift} parameter e_1>0.Comment: 42nd Allerton Conference on Communication, Control and Computing (invited paper

Finite-Length Scaling for Iteratively Decoded LDPC Ensembles

In this paper we investigate the behavior of iteratively decoded low-density parity-check codes over the binary erasure channel in the so-called ``waterfall region." We show that the performance curves in this region follow a very basic scaling law. We conjecture that essentially the same scaling behavior applies in a much more general setting and we provide some empirical evidence to support this conjecture. The scaling law, together with the error floor expressions developed previously, can be used for fast finite-length optimization.Comment: 45 pages, 14 figure

Analyzing Finite-length Protograph-based Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes

The peeling decoding for spatially coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) codes is analyzed for a binary erasure channel. An analytical calculation of the mean evolution of degree-one check nodes of protograph-based SC-LDPC codes is given and an estimate for the covariance evolution of degree-one check nodes is proposed in the stable decoding phase where the decoding wave propagates along the chain of coupled codes. Both results are verified numerically. Protograph-based SC-LDPC codes turn out to have a more robust behavior than unstructured random SC-LDPC codes. Using the analytically calculated parameters, the finite- length scaling laws for these constructions are given and verified by numerical simulations.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, submitted to ISIT 201

Improving the Finite-Length Performance of Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes by Connecting Multiple Code Chains

In this paper, we analyze the finite-length performance of codes on graphs constructed by connecting spatially coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) code chains. Successive (peeling) decoding is considered for the binary erasure channel (BEC). The evolution of the undecoded portion of the bipartite graph remaining after each iteration is analyzed as a dynamical system. When connecting short SC-LDPC chains, we show that, in addition to superior iterative decoding thresholds, connected chain ensembles have better finite-length performance than single chain ensembles of the same rate and length. In addition, we present a novel encoding/transmission scheme to improve the performance of a system using long SC-LDPC chains, where, instead of transmitting codewords corresponding to a single SC-LDPC chain independently, we connect consecutive chains in a multi-layer format to form a connected chain ensemble. We refer to such a transmission scheme to as continuous chain (CC) transmission of SC-LDPC codes. We show that CC transmission can be implemented with no significant increase in encoding/decoding complexity or decoding delay with respect a system using a single SC-LDPC code chain for encoding.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, February 201

Continuous Transmission of Spatially-Coupled LDPC Code Chains

We propose a novel encoding/transmission scheme called continuous chain (CC) transmission that is able to improve the finite-length performance of a system using spatially-coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) codes. In CC transmission, instead of transmitting a sequence of independent codewords from a terminated SC-LDPC code chain, we connect multiple chains in a layered format, where encoding, transmission, and decoding are now performed in a continuous fashion. The connections between chains are created at specific points, chosen to improve the finite-length performance of the code structure under iterative decoding. We describe the design of CC schemes for different SC-LDPC code ensembles constructed from protographs: a (J,K)-regular SC-LDPC code chain, a spatially-coupled repeat-accumulate (SC-RA) code, and a spatially-coupled accumulate-repeat-jagged-accumulate (SC- ARJA) code. In all cases, significant performance improvements are reported and, in addition, it is shown that using CC transmission only requires a small increase in decoding complexity and decoding delay with respect to a system employing a single SC-LDPC code chain for transmission.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1402.717

Hybrid Decoding of Finite Geometry LDPC Codes

For finite geometry low-density parity-check codes, heavy row and column weights in their parity check matrix make the decoding with even Min-Sum (MS) variants computationally expensive. To alleviate it, we present a class of hybrid schemes by concatenating a parallel bit flipping (BF) variant with an Min-Sum (MS) variant. In most SNR region of interest, without compromising performance or convergence rate, simulation results show that the proposed hybrid schemes can save substantial computational complexity with respect to MS variant decoding alone. Specifically, the BF variant, with much less computational complexity, bears most decoding load before resorting to MS variant. Computational and hardware complexity is also elaborated to justify the feasibility of the hybrid schemes.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, 5 table

Bandwidth Efficient and Rate-Matched Low-Density Parity-Check Coded Modulation

A new coded modulation scheme is proposed. At the transmitter, the concatenation of a distribution matcher and a systematic binary encoder performs probabilistic signal shaping and channel coding. At the receiver, the output of a bitwise demapper is fed to a binary decoder. No iterative demapping is performed. Rate adaption is achieved by adjusting the input distribution and the transmission power. The scheme is applied to bipolar amplitude shift keying (ASK) constellations with equidistant signal points and it is directly applicable to two-dimensional quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). The scheme is implemented by using the DVB-S2 low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. At a frame error rate of 1e-3, the new scheme operates within less than 1 dB of the AWGN capacity 0.5log2(1+SNR) at any spectral efficiency between 1 and 5 bits/s/Hz by using only 5 modes, i.e., 4-ASK with code rate 2/3, 8-ASK with 3/4, 16-ASK and 32-ASK with 5/6 and 64-ASK with 9/10.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 10 table

Optimization of Bit Mapping and Quantized Decoding for Off-the-Shelf Protograph LDPC Codes with Application to IEEE 802.3ca

Protograph-based, off-the-shelf low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are optimized for higher-order modulation and quantized sum-product decoders. As an example, for the recently proposed LDPC code from the upcoming IEEE 802.3ca standard for passive optical networks (PONs), an optimized mapping of the bit channels originating from bit-metric decoding to the protograph variable nodes gains 0.4 dB and 0.3 dB at a bit-error rate of 1e-6 for shaped and uniform signaling, respectively. Furthermore, the clipping value for a quantized sum-product LDPC decoder is optimized via discretized density evolution.Comment: Invited paper for ISTC 2018, Session "Ultra-High Throughput Coding for Fibre-Optical and B5G Wireless Communications

Optimized IR-HARQ Schemes Based on Punctured LDPC Codes over the BEC

We study incremental redundancy hybrid ARQ (IR-HARQ) schemes based on punctured, finite-length, LDPC codes. The transmission is assumed to take place over time varying binary erasure channels, such as mobile wireless channels at the applications layer. We analyze and optimize the throughput and delay performance of these IR-HARQ protocols under iterative, message-passing decoding. We derive bounds on the performance that are achievable by such schemes, and show that, with a simple extension, the iteratively decoded, punctured LDPC code based IR-HARQ protocol can be made rateless, and operating close to the general theoretical optimum for a wide range of channel erasure rates.Comment: IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Quantum "hyperbicycle" low-density parity check codes with finite rate

We introduce a "hyperbicycle" ansatz for quantum codes which gives the hypergraph-product (generalized toric) codes by Tillich and Z\'emor and generalized bicycle codes by MacKay et al. as limiting cases. The construction allows for both the lower and the upper bounds on the minimum distance; they scale as a square root of the block length. Many of thus defined codes have finite rate and a limited-weight stabilizer generators, an analog of classical low-density parity check (LDPC) codes. Compared to the hypergraph-product codes, hyperbicycle codes generally have wider range of parameters; in particular, they can have higher rate while preserving the (estimated) error threshold.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure