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IEEE Transactions on Information Theory

Efficient Search of Girth-Optimal QC-LDPC Codes

Alireza Tasdighi, Amir H. Banihashemi, Mohammad‐Reza Sadeghi

Published Feb 3, 2016• 78 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper, we study the cycle structure of quasi-cyclic (QC) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with the goal of obtaining the shortest code with a given degree distribution and girth. We focus on QC-LDPC codes, whose Tanner graphs are cyclic liftings of fully connected base graphs of size 3 × n, n ≥ 4, and obtain minimal lifting degrees that result in girths 6 and 8. This is performed through an efficient exhaustive search, and as a result, we also find all the possible non-isomorphic codes with the same minimum block length, girth, and degree distribution. The exhaustive search, which is ordinarily a formidable task, is made possible by pruning the search space of many codes that are isomorphic to those previously examined in the search process. Many of the pruning techniques proposed in this paper are also applicable to QC-LDPC codes with base graphs other than the 3 × n fully connected ones discussed here, as well as to codes with a larger girth. To further demonstrate the effectiveness of the pruning techniques, we use them to search for QC-LDPC codes with girths 10 and 12, and find a number of such codes that have a shorter block length compared with the best known similar codes in the literature. In addition, motivated by the exhaustive search results, we tighten the lower bound on the block length of QC-LDPC codes of girth 6 constructed from fully connected 3 × n base graphs, and construct codes that achieve the lower bound for an arbitrary value of n ≥ 4.

DOI
10.1109/tit.2016.2523979

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In this paper, we study the cycle structure of quasi-cyclic (QC) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with the goal of obtaining the shortest code with a given degree distribution and girth. We focus on QC-LDPC codes, whose Tanner graphs are cyclic liftings of fully connected base graphs of size 3 × n, n ≥ 4, and obtain minimal lifting degrees that result in girths 6 and 8. This is performed through an efficient exhaustive search, and as a result, we also find all the possible non-isomorphic codes with the same minimum block length, girth, and degree distribution. The exhaustive search, which is ordinarily a formidable task, is made possible by pruning the search space of many codes that are isomorphic to those previously examined in the search process. Many of the pruning techniques proposed in this paper are also applicable to QC-LDPC codes with base graphs other than the 3 × n fully connected ones discussed here, as well as to codes with a larger girth. To further demonstrate the effectiveness of the pruning techniques, we use them to search for QC-LDPC codes with girths 10 and 12, and find a number of such codes that have a shorter block length compared with the best known similar codes in the literature. In addition, motivated by the exhaustive search results, we tighten the lower bound on the block length of QC-LDPC codes of girth 6 constructed from fully connected 3 × n base graphs, and construct codes that achieve the lower bound for an arbitrary value of n ≥ 4.
In this paper, we study the relationships between the girth of the Tanner graph of a quasi-cyclic (QC) protograph low-density parity-check (LDPC) code, the lifting degree, and the size and the structure of the base graph. As a result, for a given base graph, we derive a lower bound on the lifting degree as a necessary condition for the lifted graph to have a certain girth. This also provides an upper bound on the girth of the family of graphs lifted from a given base graph with a given lifting degree. The upper bounds derived here, which are applicable to both regular and irregular base graphs with no parallel edges, are in some cases more general and in some other cases tighter than the existing bounds. The results presented in this work can be used to design cyclic liftings with relatively small degree and relatively large girth. As an example, we present new QC protograph LDPC code constructions with girth 8 using fully connected base graphs. These constructions provide upper bounds on the lifting degree required for achieving girth 8 using fully connected base graphs.
Multiple-edge protographs have some advantages over single-edge protographs, such as potentially having larger minimum Hamming distance. However, most of results in the literature are related to the construction of single-edge quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check codes (QC-LDPC) codes and little research has been done for the construction of multiple-edge QC-LDPC codes. In this letter, for the first time, necessary and sufficient conditions for the exponent matrices to have multiple-edge QC-LDPC codes with girth 6 are provided. As a consequence of this letter, a lower bound on the lifting degree of regular and irregular multiple-edge QC-LDPC codes with girth 6 is derived. We also present QC-LDPC codes whose lifting degrees meet our proposed lower bound. These codes have shorter lengths compared with single-edge QC-LDPC codes. Another contribution of this letter is presenting a technique to reduce the size of the search space to find these codes.
In this paper, we study the relationships between the girth of the Tanner graph of a quasi cyclic (QC) protograph low-density parity-check (LDPC) code, on one hand, and the lifting degree and the size and the structure of the base graph, on the other hand. As a result, for a given base graph and a given lifting degree, we derive an upper bound on the girth of the resulting lifted graphs (codes). The upper bounds derived here are generally tighter than the existing bounds. The results presented in this work can be used to select an appropriate lifting degree for a given base graph, in order to have a desired girth, or to provide some insight in designing good base graphs, or to properly select the base graph's edge permutations.
There exist lots of (3, L)-regular quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC codes constructed from finite fields, protographs, array codes, and computer search under some design rules. For a given code length and rate, how to select the best one from these codes is considerable. In this paper, we study (3, L)-regular QC LDPC codes from the perspective of graph isomorphism, and non-isomorphic (3, L)-regular QC LDPC codes are determined. By analyzing the cycle structures of the resulting non-isomorphic codes, an efficient algorithm for counting cycles is presented. Also proposed is a simplified exhaustive search of non-isomorphic (3, L)-regular QC LDPC codes free of cycles of length less than g0, where g0is the estimated optimal girth value for a given code length. Based on these two algorithms, we can easily construct a (3, L)-regular QC LDPC code with optimized cycle distribution for a given L and code length. Numerical results show that the constructed codes have better performance under the iterative decoding algorithms.
In this paper, we propose an effective and efficient searching method for constructing quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (QC-LDPC) codes with a desired girth g. We begin with an arbitrary QC-LDPC code with girth-4 and we evaluate only the number of cycles with length 4. When all the cycles with length 4 are removed by adjusting the elements of the QC-LDPC code, we form a QC-LDPC code with girth-6. Subsequently, we consider only the numbers of cycles with length 4 and length 6. In general, knowing that the current QC-LDPC code has a girth of g', we only consider the numbers of cycles with length up to g' even though g' may be smaller than the desired girth g. By using an adaptive cost function, which is defined as the number of cycles of length g', in the optimization/searching process, we are able to reduce the computational effort tremendously compared with Wang's searching algorithm [1]. Consequently, our proposed method can generate QC-LDPC codes with the desired girth much more efficiently.
Short cycles in the Tanner graph of a given LDPC code has negative effect on the performance of iterative decoding. To improve the performance, we presented an approach for constructing Quasi-Cyclic Low-Density Parity-Check (QC-LDPC) codes whose associated Tanner graph has large girth and a small amount of short cycles. Each column block of the parity check matrix was designed by adding circulant permutation sub-matrices one after another, provided the current parity check matrix has minimal number of short cycles. The condition for the proposed QC-LDPC codes to have girth at least 6 was also analyzed. Regular and irregular QC-LDPC codes with various lengths and rates can be constructed. Simulations show that the proposed QC-LDPC codes have less short cycles and better performance than existing progressive edge growth based QC-LDPC codes.