This paper revisits the connection between the girth of a protograph-based LDPC code given by a parity-check matrix and the properties of powers of the product between the matrix and its transpose in order to obtain the necessary and sufficient conditions for a code to have given girth between 6 and 12, and to show how these conditions can be incorporated into simple algorithms to construct codes of that girth. To this end, we highlight the role that certain submatrices that appear in these products have in the construction of codes of desired girth. In particular, we show that imposing girth conditions on a parity-check matrix is equivalent to imposing conditions on a square submatrix obtained from it and we show how this equivalence is particularly strong for a protograph based parity-check matrix of variable node degree 2, where the cycles in its Tanner graph correspond one-to-one to the cycles in the Tanner graph of a square submatrix obtained by adding the permutation matrices (or products of these) in the composition of the parity-check matrix. We end the paper with exemplary constructions of codes with various girths and computer simulations. Although, we mostly assume the case of fully connected protographs of variable node degree 2 and 3, the results can be used for any parity-check matrix/protograph-based Tanner graph.
This paper gives necessary and sufficient conditions for the Tanner graph of a quasi-cyclic (QC) low-density parity-check (LDPC) code based on the all-one protograph to have girth 6, 8, 10, and 12, respectively, in the case of parity-check matrices with column weight 4. These results are a natural extension of the girth results of the already-studied cases of column weight 2 and 3, and it is based on the connection between the girth of a Tanner graph given by a parity-check matrix and the properties of powers of the product between the matrix and its transpose. The girth conditions can be easi…
This paper presents a unifying framework to construct low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with associated Tanner graphs of desired girth. Towards this goal, we highlight the role that a certain square matrix that appears in the product of the parity-check matrix with its transpose has in the construction of codes with graphs of desired girth and further explore it in order to generate the set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a Tanner graph to have a given girth between 6 and 12. For each such girth, we present algorithms to construct codes of the desired girth and we show how to us…
One of the phenomena that causes high decoding failure rates is trapping sets. Characterization of $(a,b)$ elementary trapping sets (ETSs), their graphical properties and the lower bounds on their size in variable regular LDPC codes with column weights 3, 4, 5 and 6, where $a$ is the size of the ETS and $b$ is the number of degree-one check nodes, have been an interesting subject among researchers. Although progressive-edge-growth method (PEG) to construct LDPC codes free of an specific ETS has been proposed in the literature, it is mostly applied to LDPC codes with column weight 3. In this pa…
We study a class of quasi-cyclic LDPC codes. We provide precise conditions guaranteeing high girth in their Tanner graph. Experimentally, the codes we propose perform no worse than random LDPC codes with their same parameters, which is a significant achievement for algebraic codes.
For an arbitrary (3,L) QC-LDPC code with a girth of twelve, a tight lower bound of the consecutive lengths is proposed. For an arbitrary length above the bound the resultant code necessarily has a girth of twelve, and for the length meeting the bound, the corresponding code inevitably has a girth smaller than twelve. The conclusion can play an important role in the proofs of the existence of large-girth QC-LDPC codes, the construction of large-girth QC-LDPC codes based on the Chinese remainder theorem, and the construction of LDPC codes with the guaranteed error correction capability.
A method to construct girth-12 (3,L) quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (QC-LDPC) codes with all lengths larger than a certain given number is proposed, via a given girth-12 code subjected to some constraints. The lengths of these codes can be arbitrary integers of the form LP, provided that P is larger than a tight lower bound determined by the maximal element within the exponent matrix of the given girth-12 code. By applying the method to the case of row-weight six, we obtained a family of girth-12 (3,6) QC-LDPC codes for arbitrary lengths above 2688, which includes 30 member codes with s…
We propose a low-complexity method to find quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check block codes with girth 10 or 12 and shorter length than those designed through classical approaches. The method is extended to time-invariant spatially coupled low-density parity-check convolutional codes, permitting to achieve small syndrome former constraint lengths. Several numerical examples are given to show its effectiveness.
The relation between parity-check matrices of quasi-cyclic (QC) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes and biadjacency matrices of bipartite graphs supports searching for powerful LDPC block codes. Using the principle of tailbiting, compact representations of bipartite graphs based on convolutional codes can be found. Bounds on the girth and the minimum distance of LDPC block codes constructed in such a way are discussed. Algorithms for searching iteratively for LDPC block codes with large girth and for determining their minimum distance are presented. Constructions based on all-ones matrices, …
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 t…
In this paper we give lower bounds on the size of $(a,b)$ elementary trapping sets (ETSs) belonging to variable-regular LDPC codes with any girth, $g$, and irregular ones with girth 8, where $a$ is the size, $b$ is the number of degree-one check nodes and satisfy the inequality $\frac{b}{a}<1$. Our proposed lower bounds are analytical, rather than exhaustive search-based, and based on graph theories. The numerical results in the literarture for $g=6,8$ for variable-regular LDPC codes match our results. Some of our investigations are independent of the girth and rely on the variables $a$, $b$ a…
In this paper, we study the cycle distribution of random low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, randomly constructed protograph-based LDPC codes, and random quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC codes. We prove that for a random bipartite graph, with a given (irregular) degree distribution, the distributions of cycles of different length tend to independent Poisson distributions, as the size of the graph tends to infinity. We derive asymptotic upper and lower bounds on the expected values of the Poisson distributions that are independent of the size of the graph, and only depend on the degree distribution an…
In this paper, the concept of the {\it broken diagonal pair} in the chess-like square board is used to define some well-structured block designs whose incidence matrices can be considered as the parity-check matrices of some high rate cycle codes with girth 12. The structure of the proposed parity-check matrices significantly reduces the complexity of encoding and decoding. Interestingly, the constructed regular cycle codes with row-weights $t$, $3\leq t \leq 20$, $t\neq 7, 15, 16$, have the best lengths among the known regular girth-12 cycle codes. In addition, the proposed cycle codes can be…
We discuss error floor asympotics and present a method for improving the performance of low-density parity check (LDPC) codes in the high SNR (error floor) region. The method is based on Tanner graph covers that do not have trapping sets from the original code. The advantages of the method are that it is universal, as it can be applied to any LDPC code/channel/decoding algorithm and it improves performance at the expense of increasing the code length, without losing the code regularity, without changing the decoding algorithm, and, under certain conditions, without lowering the code rate. The …
In the literatures, it is well-known that Fossorier code has the girth among LDPC codes. In this paper, we introduce a new class of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, with higher girth than other previous constructed codes. Especially we proposed a new method to construct LDPC codes using non fixed shift permutation matrices and full based matrices with higher girth than codes constructed by Fossorier.
Quasi-cyclic (QC) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are an important instance of proto-graph-based LDPC codes. In this paper we present upper bounds on the minimum Hamming distance of QC LDPC codes and study how these upper bounds depend on graph structure parameters (like variable degrees, check node degrees, girth) of the Tanner graph and of the underlying proto-graph. Moreover, for several classes of proto-graphs we present explicit QC LDPC code constructions that achieve (or come close to) the respective minimum Hamming distance upper bounds. Because of the tight algebraic connection b…
In this paper, we define two matrices named as "difference matrices", denoted by $D$ and $DD$ which significantly contribute to achieve regular single-edge QC-LDPC codes with the shortest length and the certain girth as well as regular and irregular multiple-edge QC-LDPC codes. Making use of these matrices, we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions to have single-edge $(m,n)$-regular QC-LDPC codes with girth 6, 10 and 12. Additionally, for girth 6, we achieve all non-isomorphic codes with the minimum lifting degree, $N$, for $m=4$ and $5\leq n\leq 11$, and present an exponent matrix for ea…
We consider the problem of constructing $(3,L)$ quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes from complete protographs. A complete protograph is a small bipartite graph with two disjoint vertex sets such that every vertex in the variable-node set is connected to every vertex in the check-node set by a unique edge. This paper analyzes the required lifting factor for achieving girths of six or eight in the resulting quasi-cyclic codes with constraints on lifting. The required lifting factors provide lower bounds on the block-length of such codes.
In this paper, we propose a linear complexity encoding method for arbitrary LDPC codes. We start from a simple graph-based encoding method ``label-and-decide.'' We prove that the ``label-and-decide'' method is applicable to Tanner graphs with a hierarchical structure--pseudo-trees-- and that the resulting encoding complexity is linear with the code block length. Next, we define a second type of Tanner graphs--the encoding stopping set. The encoding stopping set is encoded in linear complexity by a revised label-and-decide algorithm--the ``label-decide-recompute.'' Finally, we prove that any Ta…
It is shown that in a sequence of randomly generated bipartite configurations with number of left nodes approaching infinity, the probability that a particular configuration in the sequence has a minimum bisection width proportional to the number of vertices in the configuration approaches $1$ so long as a sufficient condition on the node degree distribution is satisfied. This graph theory result implies an almost sure $Ω\left(n^{2}\right)$ scaling rule for the energy of capacity-approaching LDPC decoder circuits that directly instantiate their Tanner Graphs and are generated according to a un…
In this paper, the minimum distance distribution of irregular generalized LDPC (GLDPC) code ensembles is investigated. Two classes of GLDPC code ensembles are analyzed; in one case, the Tanner graph is regular from the variable node perspective, and in the other case the Tanner graph is completely unstructured and irregular. In particular, for the former ensemble class we determine exactly which ensembles have minimum distance growing linearly with the block length with probability approaching unity with increasing block length. This work extends previous results concerning LDPC and regular GL…
The bit-error threshold of the standard ensemble of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes is known to be close to capacity, if there is a non-zero fraction of degree-two bit nodes. However, the degree-two bit nodes preclude the possibility of a block-error threshold. Interestingly, LDPC codes constructed using protographs allow the possibility of having both degree-two bit nodes and a block-error threshold. In this paper, we analyze density evolution for protograph LDPC codes over the binary erasure channel and show that their bit-error probability decreases double exponentially with the numbe…
One of the phenomena that influences significantly the performance of low-density parity-check codes is known as trapping sets. An $(a,b)$ elementary trapping set, or simply an ETS where $a$ is the size and $b$ is the number of degree-one check nodes and $\frac{b}{a}<1$, causes high decoding failure rate and exert a strong influence on the error floor. In this paper, we provide sufficient conditions for exponent matrices to have fully connected $(3,n)$-regular QC-LDPC codes with girths 6 and 8 whose Tanner graphs are free of small ETSs. Applying sufficient conditions on the exponent matrix to …
On Existence of Girth-8 QC-LDPC Code with Large Column Weight: Combining Mirror-sequence with Classification Modulo Ten
Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications（西安邮电大学）；China Academy of Space Technology (Xi’an)（中国空间技术研究院（西安））；Guangdong University of Technology（广东工业大学）
For an arbitrary degree distribution pair (DDP), we construct a sequence of low-density parity-check (LDPC) code ensembles with girth growing logarithmically in block-length using Ramanujan graphs. When the DDP has minimum left degree at least three, we show using density evolution analysis that the expected bit-error probability of these ensembles, when passed through a binary erasure channel with erasure probability $ε$, decays as $\mathcal{O}(\exp(-c_1 n^{c_2}))$ with the block-length $n$ for positive constants $c_1$ and $c_2$, as long as $ε$ is lesser than the erasure threshold $ε_\mathrm{…
There have been lots of efforts on the construction of quasi-cyclic (QC) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with large girth. However, most of them are focused on protographs with single edges and little research has been done for the construction of QC LDPC codes lifted from protographs with multiple edges. Compared to single-edge protographs, multiple-edge protographs have benefits such that QC LDPC codes lifted from them can potentially have larger minimum Hamming distance. In this paper, all subgraph patterns of multiple-edge protographs, which prevent QC LDPC codes from having large gi…
A low-density parity-check (LDPC) code is a linear block code described by a sparse parity-check matrix, which can be efficiently represented by a bipartite Tanner graph. The standard iterative decoding algorithm, known as belief propagation, passes messages along the edges of this Tanner graph. Density evolution is an efficient method to analyze the performance of the belief propagation decoding algorithm for a particular LDPC code ensemble, enabling the determination of a decoding threshold. The basic problem addressed in this work is how to optimize the Tanner graph so that the decoding thr…
A novel method guaranteeing nondecreasing girth is presented for constructing longer low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes from shorter ones. The parity-check matrix of a shorter base code is decomposed into N (N>=2) non-overlapping components with the same size. Then, these components are combined together to form the parity-check matrix of a longer code, according to a given N*N Latin square. To illustrate this method, longer quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC codes are obtained with girth at least eight and satisfactory performance, via shorter QC-LDPC codes with girth eight but poor performance. The p…
The error correction performance of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes under iterative message-passing decoding is degraded by the presence of certain harmful objects existing in their Tanner graph representation. Depending on the context, such harmful objects are known as stopping sets, trapping sets, absorbing sets, or pseudocodewords. In this paper, we propose a general procedure based on edge spreading that enables the design of quasi-cyclic (QC) spatially coupled low-density parity-check codes (SC-LDPCCs) that are derived from QC-LDPC block codes and possess a significantly reduced mul…
The relation between the girth and the error correction capability of column-weight-three LDPC codes is investigated. Specifically, it is shown that the Gallager A algorithm can correct $g/2-1$ errors in $g/2$ iterations on a Tanner graph of girth $g \geq 10$.
Iterative decoding and linear programming decoding are guaranteed to converge to the maximum-likelihood codeword when the underlying Tanner graph is cycle-free. Therefore, cycles are usually seen as the culprit of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. In this paper, we argue in the context of graph cover pseudocodeword that, for a code that permits a cycle-free Tanner graph, cycles have no effect on error performance as long as they are a part of redundant rows. Specifically, we characterize all parity-check matrices that are pseudocodeword-free for such class of codes.
LDPC codes constructed from permutation matrices have recently attracted the interest of many researchers. A crucial point when dealing with such codes is trying to avoid cycles of short length in the associated Tanner graph, i.e. obtaining a possibly large girth. In this paper, we provide a framework to obtain constructions of such codes. We relate criteria for the existence of cycles of a certain length with some number-theoretic concepts, in particular with the so-called Sidon sets. In this way we obtain examples of LDPC codes with a certain girth. Finally, we extend our constructions to al…
An elementary combinatorial Tanner graph construction for a family of near-regular low density parity check codes achieving high girth is presented. The construction allows flexibility in the choice of design parameters like rate, average degree, girth and block length of the code and yields an asymptotic family. The complexity of constructing codes in the family grows only quadratically with the block length.
Quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (QC-LDPC) codes based on protographs are of great interest to code designers because analysis and implementation are facilitated by the protograph structure and the use of circulant permutation matrices for protograph lifting. However, these restrictions impose undesirable fixed upper limits on important code parameters, such as minimum distance and girth. In this paper, we consider an approach to constructing QC-LDPC codes that uses a two-step lifting procedure based on a protograph, and, by following this method instead of the usual one-step procedure, w…
We consider decoding of binary Tanner codes using message-passing iterative decoding and linear programming (LP) decoding in MBIOS channels. We present new certificates that are based on a combinatorial characterization for local-optimality of a codeword in irregular Tanner codes with respect to any MBIOS channel. This characterization is based on a conical combination of normalized weighted subtrees in the computation trees of the Tanner graph. These subtrees may have any finite height h (even equal or greater than half of the girth of the Tanner graph). In addition, the degrees of local-code…
We study error bounds for linear programming decoding of regular LDPC codes. For memoryless binary-input output-symmetric channels, we prove bounds on the word error probability that are inverse doubly-exponential in the girth of the factor graph. For memoryless binary-input AWGN channel, we prove lower bounds on the threshold for regular LDPC codes whose factor graphs have logarithmic girth under LP-decoding. Specifically, we prove a lower bound of $σ=0.735$ (upper bound of $\frac{Eb}{N_0}=2.67$dB) on the threshold of $(3,6)$-regular LDPC codes whose factor graphs have logarithmic girth. Our …
We prove that approximating the size of stopping and trapping sets in Tanner graphs of linear block codes, and more restrictively, the class of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, is NP-hard. The ramifications of our findings are that methods used for estimating the height of the error-floor of moderate- and long-length LDPC codes based on stopping and trapping set enumeration cannot provide accurate worst-case performance predictions.
An algorithm for constructing Tanner graphs of non-binary irregular quasi-cyclic LDPC codes is introduced. It employs a new method for selection of edge labels allowing control over the code's non-binary ACE spectrum and resulting in low error-floor. The efficiency of the algorithm is demonstrated by generating good codes of short to moderate length over small fields, outperforming codes generated by the known methods.
Controlling small size trapping sets and short cycles can result in LDPC codes with large minimum distance $d_{\min}$. We prove that short cycles with a chord are the root of several trapping sets and eliminating these cycles increases $d_{\min}$. We show that the lower bounds on $d_{\min}$ of an LDPC code with chordless short cycles, girths 6 (and 8), and column weights $γ$ (and 3), respectively, are $2γ$ (and 10), which is a significant improvement compared to the existing bounds $γ+1$ (and 6). Necessary and sufficient conditions for exponent matrices of protograph-based LDPC codes with chor…
Cages, defined as regular graphs with minimum number of nodes for a given girth, are well-studied in graph theory. Trapping sets are graphical structures responsible for error floor of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, and are well investigated in coding theory. In this paper, we make connections between cages and trapping sets. In particular, starting from a cage (or a modified cage), we construct a trapping set in multiple steps. Based on the connection between cages and trapping sets, we then use the available results in graph theory on cages and derive tight upper bounds on the size o…
An ensemble of LDPC convolutional codes with parity-check matrices composed of permutation matrices is considered. The convergence of the iterative belief propagation based decoder for terminated convolutional codes in the ensemble is analyzed for binary-input output-symmetric memoryless channels using density evolution techniques. We observe that the structured irregularity in the Tanner graph of the codes leads to significantly better thresholds when compared to corresponding LDPC block codes.
LDPC codes based on multiple-edge protographs potentially have larger minimum distances compared to their counterparts, single-edge protographs. However, considering different features of their Tanner graph, such as short cycles, girth and other graphical structures, is harder than for Tanner graphs from single-edge protographs. In this paper, we provide a novel approach to construct the parity-check matrix of an LDPC code which is based on trades obtained from block designs. We employ our method to construct two important categories of LDPC codes; quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC and spatially-coupled …
This paper proposes a new method of constructing compact fully-connected Quasi-Cyclic Low Density Parity Check (QC-LDPC) codes with girth g = 8, 10, and 12. The originality of the proposed method is to impose constraints on the exponent matrix P to reduce the search space drastically. For a targeted lifting degree of N, the first step of the method is to sieve the integer ring Z_N to make a particular sub-group with specific properties to construct the second column of P (the first column being filled with zeros). The remaining columns of P are determined recursively as multiples of the second…
In this paper, a novel transceiver architecture is proposed to simultaneously achieve efficient random access and reliable data transmission in massive IoT networks. At the transmitter side, each user is assigned a unique protocol sequence which is used to identify the user and also indicate the user's channel access pattern. Hence, user identification is completed by the detection of channel access patterns. Particularly, the columns of a parity check matrix of low-density-parity-check (LDPC) code are employed as protocol sequences. The design guideline of this LDPC parity check matrix and th…
In this correspondence, we study the minimum pseudo-weight and minimum pseudo-codewords of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes under linear programming (LP) decoding. First, we show that the lower bound of Kelly, Sridhara, Xu and Rosenthal on the pseudo-weight of a pseudo-codeword of an LDPC code with girth greater than 4 is tight if and only if this pseudo-codeword is a real multiple of a codeword. Then, we show that the lower bound of Kashyap and Vardy on the stopping distance of an LDPC code is also a lower bound on the pseudo-weight of a pseudo-codeword of this LDPC code with girth 4, an…
