In this paper, we give lower bounds on the size of (a, b) elementary trapping sets (ETSs) of variable-regular LDPC codes with any girth, g, and irregular ones with girth 8, where a is the size and b is the number of degree-one check nodes. Our proposed lower bounds are analytical, applicable to all values of g and b, based on graph theories and tighter than the existing ones in the literature. Our results mostly depend on the girth. We also propose results, which are independent of the girth and rely on the variables a, b, y, and the column weight value. We obtain the tightest lower bounds on the size of ETSs of variable-regular LDPC codes with girth eight. These results provide us with a chance to present a method to achieve the minimum size of ETSs of irregular LDPC codes with girth, especially those whose column weight values are a subset of (2, 3, 4, 5, 61 and fulfill the inequality (b/a) <; 1. Moreover, we present a range of numerical results about (a, b) ETSs with girths 8 and 10 to compare the tightness between our proposed lower bounds and the existing bounds in the literature.
In this paper, we give lower bounds on the size of (a, b) elementary trapping sets (ETSs) of variable-regular LDPC codes with any girth, g, and irregular ones with girth 8, where a is the size and b is the number of degree-one check nodes. Our proposed lower bounds are analytical, applicable to all values of g and b, based on graph theories and tighter than the existing ones in the literature. Our results mostly depend on the girth. We also propose results, which are independent of the girth and rely on the variables a, b, y, and the column weight value. We obtain the tightest lower bounds on the size of ETSs of variable-regular LDPC codes with girth eight. These results provide us with a chance to present a method to achieve the minimum size of ETSs of irregular LDPC codes with girth, especially those whose column weight values are a subset of (2, 3, 4, 5, 61 and fulfill the inequality (b/a) <; 1. Moreover, we present a range of numerical results about (a, b) ETSs with girths 8 and 10 to compare the tightness between our proposed lower bounds and the existing bounds in the literature.
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 paper, we focus on constructing QC-LDPC codes with column weight 4 whose Tanner graphs are free of small ETSs. Using coloring the edges of the variable node (VN) graph corresponding to an ETS, we provide the sufficient conditions to obtain QC-LDPC codes with column weight 4, girth 6 and free of (5,b) ETSs, where b≤4, and (6,b) ETs, where b≤2. Moreover, for (4,n)-regular QC-LDPC codes with girth 8, we present a method to remove (7,4) ETSs from Tanner graphs.
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 of the smallest trapping sets for variable-regular LDPC codes with a given variable degree and girth. The derived upper bounds in many cases meet the best known lower bounds and thus provide the actual size of the smallest trapping sets. Considering that nonzero codewords are a special case of trapping sets, we also derive tight upper bounds on the minimum weight of such codewords, i.e., the minimum distance, of variable-regular LDPC codes as a function of variable degree and girth.
In this paper, we study the graphical structure of elementary trapping sets (ETS) of variable-regular low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. ETSs are known to be the main cause of error floor in LDPC coding schemes. For the set of LDPC codes with a given variable node degree dl and girth g, we identify all the non-isomorphic structures of an arbitrary class of (a,b) ETSs, where a is the number of variable nodes and b is the number of odd-degree check nodes in the induced subgraph of the ETS. Our study leads to a simple characterization of dominant classes of ETSs (those with relatively small values of a and b) based on short cycles in the Tanner graph of the code. For such classes of ETSs, we prove that any set S in the class is a layered superset (LSS) of a short cycle, where the term "layered" is used to indicate that there is a nested sequence of ETSs that starts from the cycle and grows, one variable node at a time, to generate S. This characterization corresponds to a simple search algorithm that starts from the short cycles of the graph and finds all the ETSs with LSS property in a guaranteed fashion. Specific results on the structure of ETSs are presented for dl=3,4,5,6, g=6,8 and a,b≤10 in this paper. The results of this paper can be used for the error floor analysis and for the design of LDPC codes with low error floors.
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 ab<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 remove some 8-cycles results in removing all 4-cycles, 6-cycles as well as some small elementary trapping sets. For each girth we obtain a lower bound on the lifting degree and present exponent matrices with column weight three whose corresponding Tanner graph is free of certain ETSs.
In this paper, we study the graphical structure of elementary trapping sets (ETSs) of variable-regular low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. ETSs are known to be the main cause of error floor in LDPC coding schemes. For the set of LDPC codes with a given variable node degree dl and girth g, we identify all the nonisomorphic structures of an arbitrary class of (a, b) ETSs, where a is the number of variable nodes and b is the number of odd-degree check nodes in the induced subgraph of the ETS. This paper leads to a simple characterization of dominant classes of ETSs (those with relatively small values of a and b) based on short cycles in the Tanner graph of the code. For such classes of ETSs, we prove that any set S in the class is a layered superset (LSS) of a short cycle, where the term layered is used to indicate that there is a nested sequence of ETSs that starts from the cycle and grows, one variable node at a time, to generate S. This characterization corresponds to a simple search algorithm that starts from the short cycles of the graph and finds all the ETSs with LSS property in a guaranteed fashion. Specific results on the structure of ETSs are presented for dl= 3, 4, 5, 6, g = 6, 8, and a, b ≤ 10 in this paper. The results of this paper can be used for the error floor analysis and for the design of LDPC codes with low error floors.
In this paper, we propose a characterization of elementary trapping sets (ETSs) for irregular low-density paritycheck (LDPC) codes. These sets are known to be the main culprits in the error floor region of such codes. The characterization of ETSs for irregular codes has been known to be a challenging problem due to the large variety of nonisomorphic ETS structures that can exist within the Tanner graph of these codes. This is a direct consequence of the variety of the degrees of the variable nodes that can participate in such structures. The proposed characterization is based on a hierarchical graphical representation of ETSs, starting from simple cycles of the graph, or from single variable nodes, and involves three simple expansion techniques: degree-one tree (dot), path, and lollipop, thus, the terminology dpl characterization. A similar dpl characterization was proposed in an earlier work by the authors for the leafless ETSs of variable-regular LDPC codes. The present paper generalizes the prior work to codes with a variety of variable node degrees and to ETSs that are not leafless. The proposed dpl characterization corresponds to an efficient search algorithm that, for a given irregular LDPC code, can find all the instances of (a, b) ETSs with size a and with the number of unsatisfied check nodes b within any range of interest a amax and b bmax, exhaustively. Although branch-&-bound exhaustive search algorithms for finding ETSs of irregular LDPC codes exist, to the best of our knowledge, the proposed search algorithm is the first of its kind, in that, it is devised based on a characterization of ETSs that makes the search process efficient. For a constant degree distribution and range of search, the worst-case complexity of the proposed dpl algorithm increases linearly with the block length n. The average complexity, excluding the search for the input simple cycles, is constant in n. Extensive simulation results are presented to show the versatility of the search algorithm, and to demonstrate that, compared to the literature, significant improvement in search speed can be obtained.