Efficiency of threshold decoding of convolution codes

Andrew J. Viterbi

Michael Lentmaier, Arvind Sridharan, Daniel J. Costello +1 more

An iterative decoding threshold analysis for terminated regular LDPC convolutional (LDPCC) codes is presented. Using density evolution techniques, the convergence behavior of an iterative belief propagation decoder is analyzed for the binary erasure channel and the AWGN channel with binary inputs. It is shown that for a terminated LDPCC code ensemble, the thresholds are better than for corresponding regular and irregular LDPC block codes.

Arvind Sridharan

Low-density parity-check (LDPC) block codes invented by Gallager in 1962 achieve exceptional error performance on a wide variety of communication channels. LDPC convolutional codes are the convolutional counterparts of LDPC block codes. This dissertation describes techniques for the design of LDPC convolutional codes, and analyzes their distance properties and iterative decoding convergence thresholds. The construction of time invariant LDPC convolutional codes by unwrapping the Tanner graph of algebraically constructed quasi-cyclic LDPC codes is described. The convolutional codes outperform the quasi-cyclic codes from which they are derived. The design of parity-check matrices for time invariant LDPC convolutional codes by the polynomial extension of a base matrix is proposed. An upper bound on free distance, proving that time invariant LDPC codes are not asymptotically good, is obtained. The Tanner graph is used to describe a pipelined message passing based iterative decoder for LDPC convolutional codes that outputs decoding results continuously. The performance of LDPC block and convolutional codes are compared for fixed decoding parameters like computational complexity, processor complexity, and decoding delay. In each case, the LDPC convolutional code performance is at least as good as that of LDPC block codes. An analog circuit to implement pipelined decoding of LDPC convolutional codes is proposed. The distance properties of a permutation matrix based (time varying) ensemble of (J,K) regular LDPC convolutional codes is investigated. It is proved that these codes (for J > 2) have free distance increasing linearly with constraint length, i.e., they are asymptotically good. Further, the asymptotic free distance to constraint length ratio for the convolutional codes is several times larger than the minimum distance to block length ratio for corresponding LDPC block codes. Iterative decoding of terminated LDPC convolutional codes, based on the ensemble mentioned above, is analyzed, assuming transmission over a binary erasure channel. The structured irregularity of the codes leads to significantly better convergence thresholds compared to corresponding LDPC block codes. At the calculated thresholds, both the bit and block error probability can be made arbitrarily small. The results obtained suggest that the thresholds approach capacity with increasing J.

Kamil Sh. Zigangirov, Harro Osthoff

Muhammad Umar Farooq, Alexandre Graell i Amat, Michael Lentmaier

CC-GLPDC codes are a class of generalized low-density parity-check (GLDPC) codes where the constraint nodes (CNs) represent convolutional codes. This allows for efficient decoding in the trellis with the forward-backward algorithm, and the strength of the component codes easily can be controlled by the encoder memory without changing the graph structure. In this letter, we extend the class of CC-GLDPC codes by introducing different types of irregularity at the CNs and investigating their effect on the BP and MAP decoding thresholds for the binary erasure channel (BEC). For the considered class of codes, an exhaustive grid search is performed to find the BP-optimized and MAP-optimized ensembles and compare their thresholds with the regular ensemble of the same design rate. The results show that irregularity can significantly improve the BP thresholds, whereas the thresholds of the MAP-optimized ensembles are only slightly different from the regular ensembles. Simulation results for the AWGN channel are presented as well and compared to the corresponding thresholds.

Karin Engdahl, Michael Lentmaier, Kamil Sh. Zigangirov