Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes Constructed from Protographs

In this paper, we construct protograph-based spatially coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) codes by coupling together a series of L disjoint, or uncoupled, LDPC code Tanner graphs into a single coupled chain. By varying L, we obtain a flexible family of code ensembles with varying rates and frame lengths that can share the same encoding and decoding architecture for arbitrary L. We demonstrate that the resulting codes combine the best features of optimized irregular and regular codes in one design: capacity approaching iterative belief propagation (BP) decoding thresholds and linear growth of minimum distance with block length. In particular, we show that, for sufficiently large L, the BP thresholds on both the binary erasure channel (BEC) and the binary-input additive white Gaussian noise channel (AWGNC) saturate to a particular value significantly better than the BP decoding threshold and numerically indistinguishable from the optimal maximum a-posteriori (MAP) decoding threshold of the uncoupled LDPC code. When all variable nodes in the coupled chain have degree greater than two, asymptotically the error probability converges at least doubly exponentially with decoding iterations and we obtain sequences of asymptotically good LDPC codes with fast convergence rates and BP thresholds close to the Shannon limit. Further, the gap to capacity decreases as the density of the graph increases, opening up a new way to construct capacity achieving codes on memoryless binary-input symmetric-output (MBS) channels with low-complexity BP decoding.Comment: Submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Hierarchical and High-Girth QC LDPC Codes

We present a general approach to designing capacity-approaching high-girth low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes that are friendly to hardware implementation. Our methodology starts by defining a new class of "hierarchical" quasi-cyclic (HQC) LDPC codes that generalizes the structure of quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC codes. Whereas the parity check matrices of QC LDPC codes are composed of circulant sub-matrices, those of HQC LDPC codes are composed of a hierarchy of circulant sub-matrices that are in turn constructed from circulant sub-matrices, and so on, through some number of levels. We show how to map any class of codes defined using a protograph into a family of HQC LDPC codes. Next, we present a girth-maximizing algorithm that optimizes the degrees of freedom within the family of codes to yield a high-girth HQC LDPC code. Finally, we discuss how certain characteristics of a code protograph will lead to inevitable short cycles, and show that these short cycles can be eliminated using a "squashing" procedure that results in a high-girth QC LDPC code, although not a hierarchical one. We illustrate our approach with designed examples of girth-10 QC LDPC codes obtained from protographs of one-sided spatially-coupled codes.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information THeor

On the Block Error Rate Performance of Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes for Streaming Applications

In this paper, we study the block error rate (BLER) performance of spatially coupled low-density parity-check (SC- LDPC) codes using a sliding window decoder suited for streaming applications. Previous studies of SC-LDPC have focused on the bit error rate (BER) performance or the frame error rate (FER) performance over the entire length of the code. Here, we consider protograph-based constructions of SC-LDPC codes in which a window decoder continuously outputs blocks in a streaming fashion, and we examine the BLER associated with these blocks.We begin by examining the effect of protograph design on the streaming BLER by varying the block size and the coupling width in such a way that the overall constraint length of the SC-LDPC code remains constant. Next, we investigate the BLER scaling behavior with block size and coupling width. Lastly, we consider the effect of employing an outer code to protect blocks, so that small numbers of residual errors can be corrected by the outer code. Simulation results for the additive white Gaussian noise channel (AWGNC) are included and comparisons are made to LDPC block codes (LDPC-BCs)

A mathematical tool for constructing parametrizable spatially-coupled LDPC codes with cyclic structure and large girth

Spatially-coupled low-density parity-check codes (SC-LDPC) have been shown to be superior in performance than LDPC block codes for both communication and storage systems. Several heuristic construction methods for these codes have been proposed in the literature, but they allow the construction of SC-LDPC codes for only specific nodedegrees, short code length and lead to encoders/decoders with non-parametrizable complex architectures. In this work we construct a mathematical tool for generating SC-LDPC codes with arbitrary node-degrees, girth of at least six and a parity-matrix with cyclic structure. The generated codes satisfy some minimum communication performance requirements which can be previously determined and can they can also be encoded/decoded with reduced-complexity parametrizable hardware architectures. An encoder architecture with reduced memory size and reduced-complexity, known as partial-syndrome based encoder, was implemented in software and the code encodability was verified. The partial-syndrome encoder structure proposed in the literature has constrained code rate and a modified SC-LDPC code was implemented, allowing the generated codes to be encoded with the partial-syndrome encoder architecture for arbitrary rates. A reduced-complexity decoder known as window decoder was implemented in software and the code decodability was also verified.Códigos Spatially-coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) têm apresentado melhor performance do que LDPC block codes, tanto em sistemas de comunicação quanto de armazenamento. Diversos métodos heurísticos de construção para estes códigos têm sido propostos na literatura, os quais possibilitam a obtenção de códigos SC-LDPC com específicos node-degrees, pequenos comprimentos de código e necessitam codificadores/decodificadores de arquitetura complexa não-parametrizável. Neste trabalho, construiu-se uma ferramenta matemática para a geração de códigos SC-LDPC com node-degrees arbitrários, girth de no mínimo seis e matriz de paridade com estrutura cíclica. Os códigos gerados satisfazem requisitos mínimos de performance de comunicação que podem ser previamente estabelecidos e podem ser codificados/decodificados por arquiteturas de hardware parametrizáveis de complexidade reduzida. Implementou-se em software um codificador de arquitetura parametrizável com tamanho de memória reduzido e baixa complexidade, conhecido como codificador baseado em partial syndrome, e verificou-se a codificação dos códigos construídos. As arquiteturas para codificadores do tipo partial-syndrome encontradas na literatura possuem taxas de codificação não arbitrárias e por isso, modificou-se os códigos SC-LDPC construídos, permitindo que os códigos gerados possam ser codificados com o mesmo codificador do tipo partial-syndrome para taxas de codificação arbitrárias. Implementou-se em software um decodificador de complexidade reduzida, conhecido como window decoder, e verificou-se a convergência dos códigos SC-LDPC construídos

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 code words from a terminated SC-LDPC code chain, we connect multiple chains in a layered format, where encoding, transmission, and decoding are 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 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.This material is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. CCF-1161754 and CCSS-1710920, in part by NSERC Canada, and in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the Spanish National Research Agency under grants TEC2016-78434-C3-3-R (AEI/FEDER, EU) and Juan de la Cierva Fellowship IJCI-2014-19150