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IEEE Communications Letters

Useful Mathematical Tools for Capacity Approaching Codes Design

Fulvio Babich, Alessandro Soranzo, F. Vatta

Published Jun 12, 2017• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Focus of this letter is the oldest class of codes that can approach the Shannon limit quite closely, i.e., low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, and two mathematical tools that can make their design an easier job under appropriate assumptions. In particular, we present a simple algorithmic method to estimate the threshold for regular and irregular LDPC codes on memoryless binary-input continuous-output additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels with sum-product decoding, and, to determine how close are the obtained thresholds to the theoretical maximum, i.e., to the Shannon limit, we give a simple and invertible expression of the AWGN channel capacity in the binary input-soft output case. For these codes, the thresholds are defined as the maximum noise level, such that an arbitrarily small bit-error probability can be achieved as the block length tends to infinity. We assume a Gaussian approximation for message densities under density evolution, a widely used simplification of the decoding algorithm.

DOI
10.1109/lcomm.2017.2714684

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Focus of this letter is the oldest class of codes that can approach the Shannon limit quite closely, i.e., low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, and two mathematical tools that can make their design an easier job under appropriate assumptions. In particular, we present a simple algorithmic method to estimate the threshold for regular and irregular LDPC codes on memoryless binary-input continuous-output additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels with sum-product decoding, and, to determine how close are the obtained thresholds to the theoretical maximum, i.e., to the Shannon limit, we give a simple and invertible expression of the AWGN channel capacity in the binary input-soft output case. For these codes, the thresholds are defined as the maximum noise level, such that an arbitrarily small bit-error probability can be achieved as the block length tends to infinity. We assume a Gaussian approximation for message densities under density evolution, a widely used simplification of the decoding algorithm.
Density evolution is an algorithm for computing the capacity of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes under message-passing decoding. For memoryless binary-input continuous-output additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels and sum-product decoders, we use a Gaussian approximation for message densities under density evolution to simplify the analysis of the decoding algorithm. We convert the infinite-dimensional problem of iteratively calculating message densities, which is needed to find the exact threshold, to a one-dimensional problem of updating the means of the Gaussian densities. This simplification not only allows us to calculate the threshold quickly and to understand the behavior of the decoder better, but also makes it easier to design good irregular LDPC codes for AWGN channels. For various regular LDPC codes we have examined, thresholds can be estimated within 0.1 dB of the exact value. For rates between 0.5 and 0.9, codes designed using the Gaussian approximation perform within 0.02 dB of the best performing codes found so far by using density evolution when the maximum variable degree is 10. We show that by using the Gaussian approximation, we can visualize the sum-product decoding algorithm. We also show that the optimization of degree distributions can be understood and done graphically using the visualization.
This paper investigates about the usefulness of some recently published low complexity upper bounds on belief-propagation decoding thresholds for irregular low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes to analyze their performance on memoryless binary input - additive white Gaussian noise (BI-AWGN) channels, with sum-product decoding. Irregular LDPC codes are known to perform better than regular ones, and to exhibit, like them, the so called “threshold phenomenon”, being the threshold defined as the maximum noise level such that an arbitrarily small bit-error probability can be achieved as the block length tends to infinity. We use a simplified analysis of the belief-propagation decoding algorithm, i.e., consider a Gaussian approximation for message densities under density evolution, and a simple algorithmic method, defined recently, to estimate the decoding thresholds for regular and irregular LDPC codes on BI-AWGN channels.
Since irregular low‐density parity‐check (LDPC) codes are known to perform better than regular ones, and to exhibit, like them, the so‐called ‘threshold phenomenon’, this Letter investigates a low‐complexity upper bound on belief‐propagation decoding thresholds for this class of codes on memoryless binary input additive white Gaussian noise channels, with sum‐product decoding. A simplified analysis of the belief‐propagation decoding algorithm is used, i.e. consider a Gaussian approximation for message densities under density evolution, and a simple algorithmic method, defined recently, to estimate the decoding thresholds for regular and irregular LDPC codes.
This letter presents a more accurate mathematical analysis, with respect to the one performed in Chung et al.'s 2001 paper, of belief-propagation decoding for low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes on memoryless binary input-additive white Gaussian noise channels, when considering a Gaussian approximation (GA) for message densities under density evolution. The recurrent sequence, defined in Chung et al.'s 2001 paper, describing the message passing between variable and check nodes follows from the GA approach and involves the function φ(x), therein defined, and its inverse. The analysis of this function is here resumed and studied in depth to obtain tighter upper and lower bounds on it. Moreover, unlike the upper bound given in the above cited paper, the tighter upper bound on φ(x) is invertible. This allows a more accurate evaluation of the asymptotical performance of sum-product decoding of LDPC codes when a GA is assumed.
We introduce a new one-dimensional (1-D) analysis of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes on additive white Gaussian noise channels which is significantly more accurate than similar 1-D methods. Our method assumes a Gaussian distribution in message-passing decoding only for messages from variable nodes to check nodes. Compared to existing work, which makes a Gaussian assumption both for messages from check nodes and from variable nodes, our method offers a significantly more accurate estimate of convergence behavior and threshold of convergence. Similar to previous work, the problem of designing irregular LDPC codes reduces to a linear programming problem. However, our method allows irregular code design in a wider range of rates without any limit on the maximum variable-node degree. We use our method to design irregular LDPC codes with rates greater than 1/4 that perform within a few hundredths of a decibel from the Shannon limit. The designed codes perform almost as well as codes designed by density evolution.