A class of non-binary LDPC codes

Abstract

In this thesis we study Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) and LDPC like codes over non-binary fields. We extend the concepts used for non-binary LDPC codes to generalize Product Accumulate (PA) codes to non-binary fields. We present simulation results that show that PA codes over GF(4) performs considerably better than binary PA codes at smaller block lengths and slightly better at large block lengths. We also propose a trellis based decoding algorithm to decode PA codes and show that its complexity is considerably lower than the message-passing algorithm. In the second part of the thesis we study the convergence properties of non-binary PA codes and non-binary LDPC codes. We use EXIT-charts to study the convergence properties of non-binary LDPC codes with different mean column weights and show why certain irregularities are better. Although the convergence threshold predicted by EXIT-charts on non-binary LDPC codes is quite optimistic we can still use EXIT-charts for comparison between non-binary LDPC codes with different mean column weights.