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Structure of Pseudocodewords in Tanner Graphs

Christine A. Kelley, Deepak Sridhara

Published Jan 1, 2004• 2 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Abstract—This paper presents a detailed analysis of pseudocodewords of Tanner graphs. Pseudocodewords arising on the iterative decoder’s computation tree are distinguished from pseudocodewords arising on finite degree lifts. Lower bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight are presented for the BEC, BSC, and AWGN channel. Some structural properties of pseudocodewords are examined, and pseudocodewords and graph properties that are potentially problematic with min-sum iterative decoding are identified. An upper bound on the minimum degree lift needed to realize a particular irreducible lift-realizable pseudocodeword is given in terms of its maximal component, and it is shown that all irreducible lift-realizable pseudocodewords have components upper bounded by a finite value t that is dependent on the graph structure. Examples and different Tanner graph representations of individual codes are examined and the resulting pseudocodeword distributions and iterative decoding performances are analyzed. The results obtained provide some insights in relating the structure of the Tanner graph to the pseudocodeword distribution and suggest ways of designing Tanner graphs with good minimum pseudocodeword weight. Index Terms—Iterative decoding, low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, min-sum iterative decoder, pseudocodewords. I.

Related papers

Pseudocodewords of Tanner Graphs

Christine A. Kelley, Deepak Sridhara

This paper presents a detailed analysis of pseudocodewords of Tanner graphs. Pseudocodewords arising on the iterative decoder's computation tree are distinguished from pseudocodewords arising on finite degree lifts. Lower bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight are presented for the BEC, BSC, and AWGN channel. Some structural properties of pseudocodewords are examined, and pseudocodewords and graph properties that are potentially problematic with min-sum iterative decoding are identified. An upper bound on the minimum degree lift needed to realize a particular irreducible lift-realizable pseudocodeword is given in terms of its maximal component, and it is shown that all irreducible lift-realizable pseudocodewords have components upper bounded by a finite value$t$that is dependent on the graph structure. Examples and different Tanner graph representations of individual codes are examined and the resulting pseudocodeword distributions and iterative decoding performances are analyzed. The results obtained provide some insights in relating the structure of the Tanner graph to the pseudocodeword distribution and suggest ways of designing Tanner graphs with good minimum pseudocodeword weight.

arXiv:cs/0504013•IEEE Transactions on Information Theory•Nov 1, 2007•95 citations

Pseudocodewords of Parity-Check Codes

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The success of modern algorithms for the decoding problem such as message-passing iterative decoding and linear programming decoding lies in their local nature. This feature allows the algorithms to be extremely fast and capable of correcting more errors than guaranteed by the classical minimum distance of the code. Nonetheless, the performance of these decoders depends crucially on the Tanner graph representation of the code. In order to understand this choice of representation, we need to analyze the pseudocodewords of the Tanner graph of a code. These pseudocodewords are outputs of local decoding algorithms which may not be legitimate codewords. In this dissertation, we introduce a lifted fundamental cone and show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between graph cover pseudocodewords of a binary code and integer points in the lifted fundamental cone. We use this fact to prove the rationality of the generating function of the pseudocodewords for a general binary parity-check code. Our approach also yields algorithms for producing this generating function and provides tools for studying the irreducible pseudocodewords. Understanding irreducible pseudocodewords is crucial to determining the best representation of a code. Moreover, combining these techniques with the recent characterization of fundamental cone over F_3, we can analyze ternary parity-check codes. Finally, we make progress in the study of more general nonbinary codes by determining constraints satisfied by all pseudocodewords of a code over F_p where p is prime.

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Pseudocodewords, Expander Graphs, and the Algebraic Construction of Low-density Parity-check Codes

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In 1948, Claude Shannon provided a sound mathematical foundation for communication, and proved the existence of good codes. Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are a family of error-correcting codes that achieve reliable performance (i.e., arbitrarily low probability of decoding error) near the Shannon-limit when decoded iteratively via very efficient graph-based message-passing decoders, the complexity of which grows only linearly in the block-length. Despite their tremendous success, LDPC codes lack a strong theoretical foundation and few explicit constructions of them are known that outperform their random counterparts. The first part of this thesis investigates how the structure of a graph representing an LDPC code affects the decoding performance. In particular, lower bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight, a key parameter in predicting iterative decoding performance, are obtained which link the performance of the code to the structural properties of its graph. One bound is a tree bound and is extended to generalized and p-ary LDPC codes. To this end, a suitable definition of pseudocodeword weight is derived for the p-ary symmetric channel. Moreover, the relationship between pseudocodeword weight distributions and different graph representations is examined. Bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight are also presented for several classes of expander codes based on the eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of the Tanner graph. The second part of this thesis constructs LDPC codes having desirable properties. The first construction is combinatorial and uses permutations and mutually orthogonal Latin squares. One type results in the well-known projective-geometrybased LDPC codes. Another type yields a new family of codes having comparable parameters and pseudocodeword weights suitable for iterative decoding. The resulting performance of these codes is superior in comparison with that of comparable random LDPC codes, a feature attributed to the lack of low-weight bad pseudocodewords. For the second construction, unbalanced expander graphs are obtained by modifying the original zig-zag graph product to take bi-regular expander graphs as components, with suitable constraints on the degrees. Graphs resulting from the zig-zag and replacement product graphs are then used in the design of generalized LDPC codes having compact representation and pseudocodeword weights lower-bounded by the eigenvalue bounds.

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Minimum Pseudoweight and Minimum Pseudocodewords of LDPC Codes

Shu‐Tao Xia, Fang‐Wei Fu

In this correspondence, we study the minimum pseudoweight and minimum pseudocodewords of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes under linear programming (LP) decoding. First, we show that the lower bound of Kelley, Sridhara, Xu, and Rosenthal on the pseudoweight of a nonzero pseudocodeword of an LDPC code whose Tanner graph has girth greater than is tight if and only if this pseudocodeword is a real multiple of a codeword. Then, the lower bound of Kashyap and Vardy on the stopping distance of an LDPC code is proved to be also a lower bound on the pseudoweight of a nonzero pseudocodeword of an LDPC code whose Tanner graph has girth , and this lower bound is tight if and only if this pseudocodeword is a real multiple of a codeword. Using these results we further obtain that for some LDPC codes, there are no other minimum pseudocodewords except the real multiples of minimum weight codewords. This means that the LP decoding for these LDPC codes is asymptotically optimal in the sense that the ratio of the probabilities of decoding errors of LP decoding and maximum-likelihood decoding approaches as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) tends to infinity. Finally, some LDPC codes are listed to illustrate these results.

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Pseudocodeword-Free Criterion for Codes with Cycle-Free Tanner Graph

Wittawat Kositwattanarerk

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.

arXiv:1706.06648•Jun 20, 2017•0 citations
Abstract—This paper presents a detailed analysis of pseudocodewords of Tanner graphs. Pseudocodewords arising on the iterative decoder’s computation tree are distinguished from pseudocodewords arising on finite degree lifts. Lower bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight are presented for the BEC, BSC, and AWGN channel. Some structural properties of pseudocodewords are examined, and pseudocodewords and graph properties that are potentially problematic with min-sum iterative decoding are identified. An upper bound on the minimum degree lift needed to realize a particular irreducible lift-realizable pseudocodeword is given in terms of its maximal component, and it is shown that all irreducible lift-realizable pseudocodewords have components upper bounded by a finite value t that is dependent on the graph structure. Examples and different Tanner graph representations of individual codes are examined and the resulting pseudocodeword distributions and iterative decoding performances are analyzed. The results obtained provide some insights in relating the structure of the Tanner graph to the pseudocodeword distribution and suggest ways of designing Tanner graphs with good minimum pseudocodeword weight. Index Terms—Iterative decoding, low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, min-sum iterative decoder, pseudocodewords. I.
This paper presents a detailed analysis of pseudocodewords of Tanner graphs. Pseudocodewords arising on the iterative decoder's computation tree are distinguished from pseudocodewords arising on finite degree lifts. Lower bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight are presented for the BEC, BSC, and AWGN channel. Some structural properties of pseudocodewords are examined, and pseudocodewords and graph properties that are potentially problematic with min-sum iterative decoding are identified. An upper bound on the minimum degree lift needed to realize a particular irreducible lift-realizable pseudocodeword is given in terms of its maximal component, and it is shown that all irreducible lift-realizable pseudocodewords have components upper bounded by a finite valuetttthat is dependent on the graph structure. Examples and different Tanner graph representations of individual codes are examined and the resulting pseudocodeword distributions and iterative decoding performances are analyzed. The results obtained provide some insights in relating the structure of the Tanner graph to the pseudocodeword distribution and suggest ways of designing Tanner graphs with good minimum pseudocodeword weight.
The success of modern algorithms for the decoding problem such as message-passing iterative decoding and linear programming decoding lies in their local nature. This feature allows the algorithms to be extremely fast and capable of correcting more errors than guaranteed by the classical minimum distance of the code. Nonetheless, the performance of these decoders depends crucially on the Tanner graph representation of the code. In order to understand this choice of representation, we need to analyze the pseudocodewords of the Tanner graph of a code. These pseudocodewords are outputs of local decoding algorithms which may not be legitimate codewords. In this dissertation, we introduce a lifted fundamental cone and show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between graph cover pseudocodewords of a binary code and integer points in the lifted fundamental cone. We use this fact to prove the rationality of the generating function of the pseudocodewords for a general binary parity-check code. Our approach also yields algorithms for producing this generating function and provides tools for studying the irreducible pseudocodewords. Understanding irreducible pseudocodewords is crucial to determining the best representation of a code. Moreover, combining these techniques with the recent characterization of fundamental cone over F_3, we can analyze ternary parity-check codes. Finally, we make progress in the study of more general nonbinary codes by determining constraints satisfied by all pseudocodewords of a code over F_p where p is prime.
In 1948, Claude Shannon provided a sound mathematical foundation for communication, and proved the existence of good codes. Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are a family of error-correcting codes that achieve reliable performance (i.e., arbitrarily low probability of decoding error) near the Shannon-limit when decoded iteratively via very efficient graph-based message-passing decoders, the complexity of which grows only linearly in the block-length. Despite their tremendous success, LDPC codes lack a strong theoretical foundation and few explicit constructions of them are known that outperform their random counterparts. The first part of this thesis investigates how the structure of a graph representing an LDPC code affects the decoding performance. In particular, lower bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight, a key parameter in predicting iterative decoding performance, are obtained which link the performance of the code to the structural properties of its graph. One bound is a tree bound and is extended to generalized and p-ary LDPC codes. To this end, a suitable definition of pseudocodeword weight is derived for the p-ary symmetric channel. Moreover, the relationship between pseudocodeword weight distributions and different graph representations is examined. Bounds on the minimum pseudocodeword weight are also presented for several classes of expander codes based on the eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of the Tanner graph. The second part of this thesis constructs LDPC codes having desirable properties. The first construction is combinatorial and uses permutations and mutually orthogonal Latin squares. One type results in the well-known projective-geometrybased LDPC codes. Another type yields a new family of codes having comparable parameters and pseudocodeword weights suitable for iterative decoding. The resulting performance of these codes is superior in comparison with that of comparable random LDPC codes, a feature attributed to the lack of low-weight bad pseudocodewords. For the second construction, unbalanced expander graphs are obtained by modifying the original zig-zag graph product to take bi-regular expander graphs as components, with suitable constraints on the degrees. Graphs resulting from the zig-zag and replacement product graphs are then used in the design of generalized LDPC codes having compact representation and pseudocodeword weights lower-bounded by the eigenvalue bounds.
Since the invention of turbo codes, there has been an explosion of interest in iterative decoding and graphical representation of codes. This thesis examines the iterative decoding of codes defined on graphs with cycles, which appears to be an efficient means of achieving the Shannon limit. Much of this analysis is on the iterative min-sum decoding of tail-biting codes and cycle codes. We have identified the pseudocodeword as the cause of the suboptimal performance of the iterative decoder, and we have obtained a union bound for the performance of the iterative decoder on both AWGN and BSC channels. Using the union bound argument, for cycle codes, we have shown that the performance of the iterative decoder is asymptotically as good as that of the ML decoder. As for tail-biting codes, the same thing is true if the lowest weight pseudocodeword is at least the minimum weight of the code. Unfortunately, the analysis of tail-biting codes and cycle codes does not extend to turbo codes and low density parity check codes in general. Our next approach is to determine the average behavior of message passing algorithms by studying the evolution of their "message" densities. For the class of "repeat and accumulate" serially concatenated turbo-like codes, we have devised an algorithm for determining their "threshold" values. When the signal-to-noise ratio is larger than the threshold value, the error probabilities of message passing algorithms approach zero, whereas if the signal-to-noise ratio is less than the threshold value, the error probability stays bounded away from zero. Some message passing algorithms and graphical representation of codes are efficient means of devising ML or MAP decoding algorithms. We have proposed a junction tree representation for linear block codes, and we have shown that the minimum junction tree can be less complex than the minimal trellis.
In this correspondence, we study the minimum pseudoweight and minimum pseudocodewords of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes under linear programming (LP) decoding. First, we show that the lower bound of Kelley, Sridhara, Xu, and Rosenthal on the pseudoweight of a nonzero pseudocodeword of an LDPC code whose Tanner graph has girth greater than is tight if and only if this pseudocodeword is a real multiple of a codeword. Then, the lower bound of Kashyap and Vardy on the stopping distance of an LDPC code is proved to be also a lower bound on the pseudoweight of a nonzero pseudocodeword of an LDPC code whose Tanner graph has girth , and this lower bound is tight if and only if this pseudocodeword is a real multiple of a codeword. Using these results we further obtain that for some LDPC codes, there are no other minimum pseudocodewords except the real multiples of minimum weight codewords. This means that the LP decoding for these LDPC codes is asymptotically optimal in the sense that the ratio of the probabilities of decoding errors of LP decoding and maximum-likelihood decoding approaches as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) tends to infinity. Finally, some LDPC codes are listed to illustrate these results.
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.