Generalized Quasi-Cyclic LDPC Codes: Design and Efficient Encoding

TL;DR

This paper introduces practical methods for constructing polynomial generator matrices for generalized quasi-cyclic LDPC codes, enabling efficient encoding and improved performance for low-latency communication systems.

Contribution

It provides new construction techniques for polynomial matrices of QC-GLDPC codes, facilitating efficient encoding and analysis of code properties.

Findings

Constructed polynomial generator matrices using minors of the polynomial matrix.

Derived bounds on minimum distance and methods to identify low weight codewords.

Presented formulas for the rank and dimension of QC-GLDPC codes.

Abstract

Generalized low-density parity-check (GLDPC) codes, where single parity-check constraints on the code bits are replaced with generalized constraints (an arbitrary linear code), are a promising class of codes for low-latency communication. The block error rate performance of the GLDPC codes, combined with a complementary outer code, has been shown to outperform a variety of state-of-the-art code and decoder designs with suitable lengths and rates for the 5G ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) regime. A major drawback of these codes is that it is not known how to construct appropriate polynomial matrices to encode them efficiently. In this paper, we analyze practical constructions of quasi-cyclic GLDPC (QC-GLDPC) codes and show how to construct polynomial generator matrices in various forms using minors of the polynomial matrix. The approach can be applied to fully generalized matrices or partially generalized (with mixed constraint node types) to find better performance/rate trade-offs. The resulting encoding matrices are presented in useful forms that facilitate efficient implementation. The rich substructure displayed also provides us with new methods of determining low weight codewords, providing lower and upper bounds on the minimum distance and often giving those of weight equal to the minimum distance. Based on the minors of the polynomial parity-check matrix, we also give a formula for the rank of any parity-check matrix representing a QC-LDPC or QC-GLDPC code, and hence, the dimension of the code. Finally, we show that by applying double graph-liftings, the code parameters can be improved without affecting the ability to obtain a polynomial generator matrix.