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IEEE Communications Letters

More Accurate Analysis of Sum-Product Decoding of LDPC Codes Using a Gaussian Approximation

F. Vatta, Alessandro Soranzo, Fulvio Babich

Published Dec 11, 2018• 23 citations
Publisher

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1109/lcomm.2018.2886261

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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.
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.
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.
Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes are currently being deeply analyzed through algorithms that require the capability of addressing their iterative decoding convergence performance. Since it has been observed that the probability distribution function of the decoder’s log-likelihood ratio messages is roughly Gaussian, a multiplicity of moderate entanglement strategies to this analysis has been suggested. The first of them was proposed in Chung et al.’s 2001 paper, where the recurrent sequence, characterizing the passage of messages between variable and check nodes, concerns the function ϕ(x), therein specified, and its inverse. In this paper, we review this old approximation to the function ϕ(x), one variant on it obtained in the same period (proposed in Ha et al.’s 2004 paper), and some new ones, recently published in two 2019 papers by Vatta et al. The objective of this review is to analyze the differences among them and their characteristics in terms of accuracy and computational complexity. In particular, the explicitly invertible, not piecewise defined approximation of the function ϕ(x), published in the second of the two abovementioned 2019 papers, is shown to have less relative error in any x than most of the other approximations. Moreover, its use conducts to an important complexity reduction, and allows better Gaussian approximated thresholds to be obtained.
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.
Low density parity check (LDPC) codes are still intensively studied investigating their iterative decoding convergence performance. Since the probability distribution function of the decoder's log‐likelihood ratio messages was observed to be approximately Gaussian, a variety of low‐complexity approaches to this investigation were proposed. One of them was presented in Chung et al. 's 2001 paper, involving the function , therein specified, and its inverse. In this Letter, a new approximation of the function is given, such that, unlike the other approximations found in the literature, it is defined by a single expression (i.e. it is not piecewise defined), it is explicitly invertible, and it has less relative error in any x than the other approximations.