Extrinsic Information Transfer Research Articles

Experimental demonstration of flexible information rate PON beyond 100 Gb/s with rate-compatible LDPC codes

The applications of rate-compatible low-density parity-check (RC-LDPC) codes are investigated for a 16 quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) signal and coherent detection system. With rate-compatible signals, we can provide the flexible net data rate between 135.5 Gb/s and 169.7 Gb/s in a passive optical network (PON) link. Based on the LDPC codes defined in the IEEE 802.3ca standard, we construct two sets of RC-LDPC codes with a fixed and variable information bit length. Since the puncturing operation may degrade the performance of LDPC codes, we apply the protograph-based extrinsic information transfer (PEXIT) technique to optimize the puncturing positions to mitigate the degradation. Additionally, we explore four low-complexity LDPC decoding algorithms (min sum, offset min sum, variable weight min sum, and relaxed min sum with 2 nd min emulation) to investigate the relationship between the computational complexity and decoding performance. Simulation results indicate that the constructed codewords exhibit good performance in the waterfall region across a range of code rates. Finally, we conduct an experimental setup in a dual-polarization 25 GBaud 16QAM coherent PON to verify the effectiveness of the constructed LDPC codes with four decoding algorithms. The experimental results show maximal 4.8 dB receiver sensitivity differences, which demonstrate the feasibility of the method for constructing RC-LDPC codes in future high-speed flexible coherent PON.

Reed–Muller Codes on BMS Channels Achieve Vanishing Bit-Error Probability for all Rates Below Capacity

This paper considers the performance of Reed-Muller (RM) codes transmitted over binary memoryless symmetric (BMS) channels under bitwise maximum-a-posteriori (bit-MAP) decoding. Its main result is that, for a fixed BMS channel, the family of binary RM codes can achieve a vanishing bit-error probability at rates approaching the channel capacity. This partially resolves a long-standing open problem that connects information theory and error-correcting codes. In contrast with the earlier result for the binary erasure channel, the new proof does not rely on hypercontractivity. Instead, it combines a nesting property of RM codes with new information inequalities relating the generalized extrinsic information transfer function and the extrinsic minimum mean-squared error.

Rate-Diverse Multiple Access Over Gaussian Channels

In this work, we develop a pair of rate-diverse encoder and decoder for a two-user Gaussian multiple access channel (GMAC). The proposed scheme enables the users to transmit with the same codeword length but different coding rates under diverse user channel conditions. First, we propose the row-combining (RC) method and row-extending (RE) method to design practical low-density parity-check (LDPC) channel codes for rate-diverse GMAC. Second, we develop an iterative rate-diverse joint user messages decoding (RDJD) algorithm for GMAC, where all user messages are decoded with a single parity-check matrix. In contrast to the conventional network-coded multiple access (NCMA) and compute-forward multiple access (CFMA) schemes that first recover a linear combination of the transmitted codewords and then decode both user messages, this work can decode both the user messages simultaneously. Extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart analysis and simulation results indicate that RDJD can achieve gains up to 1.0 dB over NCMA and CFMA in the two-user GMAC. In particular, we show that there exists an optimal rate allocation for the two users to achieve the best decoding performance given the channel conditions and sum rate.

Design and Optimization of Linking Matrix for a JSCC System Based on DP-LDPC Codes.

Although extensive optimization of encoding and decoding schemes for joint source-channel coding (JSCC) systems has been conducted, efficient optimization schemes are still required for designing and optimizing the linking matrix between variable nodes of the source code and check nodes of the channel code. A scheme has been proposed for design and optimization of linking matrix with multi-edges by analyzing the performance of the JSCC system using the joint protograph extrinsic information transfer algorithm to calculate decoding thresholds. The proposed scheme incorporates structural constraints and is effective in designing and optimizing the multi-edges in linking matrix for the JSCC system. Experimental results have demonstrated that the designed and optimized linking matrix significantly improves the performance of the JSCC system. Furthermore, the proposed scheme reduces the complexity of the solution space for the optimized example.

Rate-Compatible Protograph LDPC Codes for Source Coding in Joint Source—Channel Coded Modulation Systems

Using the source residual redundancy in a joint source and channel coded modulation (JSCCM) system to achieve a shaping gain has proven to be a good solution for probabilistic amplitude shaping. In a JSCCM system, rate-compatible source codes are essential for adapting to dynamically changing source probabilities. However, conventional rate-compatible source codes are not appropriate for JSCCM systems, since they may yield a loss in the shaping gain. Moreover, a code design that depends solely on the source decoding threshold appears to be ill suited, thus complicating the search for good source codes. In this paper, we propose a rate-compatible family of source codes for JSCCM systems based on an achievable system rate analysis and the source protograph extrinsic information transfer (PEXIT) algorithm. The proposed codes not only have good source decoding thresholds but also obtain shaping gains over the whole considered range of source probabilities. Numerical results show that the proposed rate-compatible family of source codes can significantly improve the bit-error-rate (BER) performance of the JSCCM system.

Asymmetric Dual-Mode Constellation and Protograph LDPC Code Design for Generalized Spatial MPPM Systems

To achieve reliable and efficient transmissions in free-space optical (FSO) communication, this paper designs a new protograph low-density parity-check (PLDPC) coded generalized spatial multipulse position modulation (GSMPPM) system over weak turbulence channels. Specifically, we investigate the PLDPC code, generalized space shift keying (GSSK) modulation, and MPPM constellation. First, we propose a type of novel GSMPPM constellations that intelligently integrates the GSSK into MPPM, referred to as asymmetric dual-mode (ADM) constellations, so as to improve the performance of the PLDPC-coded GSMPPM system. Furthermore, exploiting a protograph extrinsic information transfer (PEXIT) algorithm, we construct a type of improved PLDPC code, referred to as I-PLDPC code, which outperforms the existing PLDPC codes over weak turbulence channels. Analytical and simulation results show that the proposed ADM constellations and the proposed I-PLDPC code can obtain noticeable performance gains over their counterparts. Therefore, the proposed PLDPC-coded GSMPPM system with ADM constellations is competent to satisfy the high-reliability requirement for FSO applications.

Optimization of Protograph LDPC Codes via Surrogate Channel for Unequal Power Allocation

This paper investigates the possibilities of optimizing existing protograph low-density parity-check (PLDPC) codes and designing optimal PLDPC codes on both AWGN and Rayleigh channels under binary modulation with unequal power allocation (UPA) for nonuniform sources. While the binary UPA modulation achieves a power gain, it also results in unequal error protection on the coded bits in systematic codewords during transmission. For irregular codes, it is possible to best protect the information bits by optimizing the classification of variable nodes (VNs). Those VNs represent the coded bits in protograph that allows exploiting jointly the degree irregularity and the power differentiation. An algorithm for UPA-based protograph extrinsic information transfer (UPA-PEXIT) analysis on the Rayleigh channel is proposed with the concept of surrogate channel which circumvents the channel asymmetry problem with UPA. With the RJA code as example, it is shown that classification optimization does improve the decoding threshold when the source entropy is small. To design optimal codes, a UPA-based differential evolution (UPA-DE) algorithm is proposed in conjunction with the UPA-PEXIT analysis. A family of optimized codes are illustrated for three typical nonuniform source distributions and compared with the RJA and NND codes by simulations in error rate performance.

Analysis and Optimization of a General Linking Matrix for JSCC Scheme Based on Double LDPC Codes

A key component of the joint source-channel coding (JSCC) scheme based on double low-density parity-check (D-LDPC) codes is the introduction of a linking matrix between the source LDPC code and channel LDPC code, by which the decoding information including the source redundancy and channel state information can be transferred iteratively. However, the linking matrix is a fixed one-to-one mapping, i.e., an identity matrix in a conventional D-LDPC code system, which may not take full advantage of the decoding information. Therefore, this paper introduces a general linking matrix, i.e., a non-identity linking matrix, connecting the check nodes (CNs) of the source LDPC code and the variable nodes (VNs) of the channel LDPC code. Further, the encoding and decoding algorithms of the proposed D-LDPC coding system are generalized. A joint extrinsic information transfer (JEXIT) algorithm is derived for calculating the decoding threshold of the proposed system with a general linking matrix. In addition, several general linking matrices are optimized with the aid of the JEXIT algorithm. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed D-LDPC coding system with general linking matrices.

Design and Analysis of Joint Group Shuffled Scheduling Decoding Algorithm for Double LDPC Codes System.

In this paper, a joint group shuffled scheduling decoding (JGSSD) algorithm for a joint source-channel coding (JSCC) scheme based on double low-density parity-check (D-LDPC) codes is presented. The proposed algorithm considers the D-LDPC coding structure as a whole and applies shuffled scheduling to each group; the grouping relies on the types or the length of the variable nodes (VNs). By comparison, the conventional shuffled scheduling decoding algorithm can be regarded as a special case of this proposed algorithm. A novel joint extrinsic information transfer (JEXIT) algorithm for the D-LDPC codes system with the JGSSD algorithm is proposed, by which the source and channel decoding are calculated with different grouping strategies to analyze the effects of the grouping strategy. Simulation results and comparisons verify the superiority of the JGSSD algorithm, which can adaptively trade off the decoding performance, complexity and latency.

Symbol-Level Detection With Matched Non-Binary LDPC Codes for Position Errors in Racetrack Memories

In racetrack memory (RM), insertion and deletion (ID) errors occur owing to alignment faults; such errors are referred to as position errors (PEs). Recently, several coding schemes for PEs have been proposed based on binary low-density parity-check (BI-LDPC) codes with a joint bit-wise (BW) detection and decoding algorithm. Although these schemes yield promising asymptotic performance, they suffer from unsatisfactory finite-length performance in short block sizes. To address this problem, we propose a novel coding scheme based on non-binary LDPC (NB-LDPC) codes and symbol-wise (SW) detection. The factor graph of the proposed scheme avoids generating cycles between the detector and decoder graphs by leveraging RM’s special property that multiple ID errors are caused by PEs simultaneously, which enables the attainment of good finite-length performance while providing fast convergence. With the aim of providing further performance improvement, we also provide an SW extrinsic information transfer chart analysis to design NB-LDPC codes for the proposed scheme.

Global Design of Double Protograph LDPC Codes for Joint Source-Channel Coding

In this letter, a global design of double protograph low-density parity-check (DP-LDPC) codes is proposed for joint source-channel coding (JSCC) system. The maximum number of degree-2 variable nodes (VNs), which is very important for the performance of the system, is determined from a global perspective that considers the joint protograph as a whole. Based on the allocation of degree-2 VNs, the new guidelines with this more comprehensive perspective are summarized and the global optimized DP-LDPC codes are designed. The simulation results that are in consistent with the joint protograph extrinsic information transfer (P-EXIT) analysis indicate that the optimized DP-LDPC codes have better performance compared with the existing re-designed DP-LDPC codes.

Irregular-Mapped Protograph LDPC-Coded Modulation: A Bandwidth-Efficient Solution for 6G-Enabled Mobile Networks

The huge amount of data produced in the 6G networks not only brings new challenges to the reliability and efficiency of mobile devices but also drives rapid development of new storage techniques. With the benefits of fast access speed and high reliability, NAND flash memory has become a promising storage solution for the 6G networks. In this paper, we investigate a protograph-coded bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative detection and decoding (BICM-ID) utilizing irregular mapping (IM) in the NAND flash-memory systems. First, we propose an enhanced protograph-based extrinsic information transfer (EPEXIT) algorithm to facilitate the analysis of protograph codes in the IM-BICM-ID systems. With the use of EPEXIT algorithm, a simple design method is conceived for the construction of a family of high-rate protograph codes, called irregular-mapped accumulate-repeat-accumulate (IMARA) codes, which possess excellent decoding thresholds and linear-minimum-distance-growth property. Furthermore, motivated by the voltage-region iterative gain characteristics of IM-BICM-ID systems, a novel read-voltage optimization scheme is developed to acquire accurate read-voltage levels, thus minimizing the decoding thresholds (in dB) of protograph codes. Analyses and simulations indicate that the proposed IMARA-aided IM-BICM-ID scheme and read-voltage optimization scheme remarkably improve the convergence and decoding performance of flash-memory systems. Thus, the proposed protograph-coded IM-BICM-ID can be viewed as a reliable and efficient storage solution for the new-generation mobile networks, such as Internet of Vehicles.

Analysis of LDPC Code in Hybrid Communication Systems

Free-space optical (FSO) communication is of supreme importance for designing next-generation networks. Over the past decades, the radio frequency (RF) spectrum has been the main topic of interest for wireless technology. The RF spectrum is becoming denser and more employed, making its availability tough for additional channels. Optical communication, exploited for messages or indications in historical times, is now becoming famous and useful in combination with error-correcting codes (ECC) to mitigate the effects of fading caused by atmospheric turbulence. A free-space communication system (FSCS) in which the hybrid technology is based on FSO and RF. FSCS is a capable solution to overcome the downsides of current schemes and enhance the overall link reliability and availability. The proposed FSCS with regular low-density parity-check (LDPC) for coding techniques is deliberated and evaluated in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in this paper. The extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) methodology is an incredible technique employed to investigate the sum-product decoding algorithm of LDPC codes and optimize the EXIT chart by applying curve fitting. In this research work, we also analyze the behavior of the EXIT chart of regular/irregular LDPC for the FSCS. We also investigate the error performance of LDPC code for the proposed FSCS.

Tree-Search Techniques for Joint Iterative Compressive Sensing and LDPC Decoding in Wireless Sensor Networks

Novel techniques are conceived for joint compressive sensing (CS) and low-density parity check (LDPC) coding in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), namely, a soft-input soft-output (SISO) tree search sphere decoding (SD) technique and an SISO Hamming distance (HD)-based solution. Factor graphs are utilized to describe the connectivity between the signals and sensors, as well as with the LDPC codes. In the fusion center (FC), the factor graphs may be used for iterative joint LDPC-CS decoding in order to recover the signals observed. However, the CS decoder of the FC suffers from high complexity if the exhaustive Maximum A Posteriori (e-MAP) technique is employed, which considers all possible combinations of source signals detected by each of the associated sensors. Hence, in the proposed SD and HD schemes, only the more likely combinations of source signals are tested for reducing the CS decoding complexity. More specifically, a tree search technique is used in the first step to find the most likely combination of source signal values. Then, in the second step, the proposed SD continues the tree search to find a set of alternative hypotheses. This facilitates the generation of high-quality extrinsic information, which may be iteratively exchanged with the LDPC decoder. By contrast, in the HD approach, the second step obtains the alternative hypotheses within a certain HD of the most likely source signal combination. Both our BLock Error Rate (BLER) results and EXtrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts show that the proposed SD and HD techniques approach the performance of the full-search e-MAP approach at a significantly reduced complexity. In particular, we show that the e-MAP solution is about 56 times more complex than the SD approach and around 210 times more complex than the HD approach. Compared to a separate source-channel coding (SSCC) hard information benchmarker, the proposed SISO schemes improve the decoding performance by about <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${1}.{7} \text {dB}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> . Furthermore, the SISO schemes allow the iterations inside the CS decoding to eliminate the error floors and obtain a further <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${2}.{45}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -dB gain.

Spatially-Coupled Faster-Than-Nyquist Signaling: A Joint Solution to Detection and Code Design

In this paper, we investigate two important issues of faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) signaling, namely, reduced-complexity detection and code design. Different from previous works, we consider these two issues jointly by designing a scheme that increases the minimum squared Euclidean distance of FTN signaling via repetition coding at a cost of an increased complexity. Furthermore, to reduce the rate loss of the repetition, we adopt the idea of spatially-coupling from coding theory to FTN signaling, and the resultant signaling scheme is therefore referred to as spatially-coupled faster-than-Nyquist (SC-FTN) signaling. The signal of SC-FTN signaling is generated in a continuous manner by interleaving and repeating the coded FTN signals and a graph-based iterative sliding-window detector is applied for signal detection. Both bounding and extrinsic information transfer chart analysis are provided to study the error-floor and convergence performances of SC-FTN signaling. These analyses unveil the intrinsic relationship between error floor, decoding threshold, and detection/decoding complexity, which provides guidelines for the designs of practical systems. Simulation results show that the promising error performance can be achieved with a simple FTN detection, where the bit error rate performance of coded SC-FTN signaling outperforms that of state-of-the-art coded FTN systems and the capacity of Nyquist signaling.

A Joint Equalization and Decoding Technique for Multiuser Massive MIMO Uplink System With Transmitter and Receiver RF Impairments Under Doubly Selective Channels

The impairments due to in-phase and quadrature-phase imbalance at the transmitter and/or receiver, carrier frequency offset, and doubly selective channel (DSC) result in multiuser interference (MUI) and self-intercarrier interference (S-ICI) in multiuser massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) uplink systems. The MUI and S-ICI significantly deteriorate the performance of the receiver and make data detection quite a challenging task. To tackle this issue, we developed a novel crisscross banded effective channel matrix and a joint equalization and detection technique for multiuser massive MIMO single-carrier frequency division multiple access/orthogonal frequency division multiple access uplink systems with RF impairments under DSC. During each iteration of the proposed method, the MUI and S-ICI are calculated using the soft information from the decoder section, and then the interference canceled signal is fed back to the equalizer section for the joint equalization of the mirror subcarrier pairs. Since the proposed method does not put any restriction on the allocation of mirror subcarrier pairs, it is equally applicable to all types of carrier assignment schemes. Further, the extrinsic information transfer chart of the proposed technique is developed for analyzing the convergence. Extensive simulation studies are conducted to validate the performance of the proposed technique.

Performance analysis and design of quasi-cyclic LDPC codes for underwater magnetic induction communications

Magnetic induction (MI) communication is an effective scheme for underwater wireless communication. In this paper, we aim to design an underwater MI communication system based on Quasi-cyclic LDPC (QC-LDPC) codes. Firstly, for a given QC-LDPC code used in underwater MI communication, we propose a novel algorithm to evaluate its performance, which is named as underwater magnetic induction protograph (UWMIP) extrinsic information transfer algorithm. Furthermore, we present a differential evolution UWMIP (DE-UWMIP) algorithm, which incorporates the differential evolution method and the UWMIP algorithm. By this algorithm, we search the optimized QC-LDPC codes with best distance threshold. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is effective and provide a good guidance to design the underwater MI communication system.

Double Polar Codes for Joint Source and Channel Coding

In this paper, we design a joint source and channel coding (JSCC) framework combining the source polar coding and the channel polar coding. The source is first compressed using a polar code (PC), and source check decoding is employed to construct an error set containing the index of all source decoding errors. Then, the proposed JSCC system employs another PC or systematic PC (SPC) to protect the compressed source and the error set against noise, which is called double PC (D-PC) or systematic double PC (SD-PC), respectively. For a D-PC JSCC system, we prove a necessary condition for the optimal mapping between the source PC and the channel PC. On the receiver side, by introducing the joint factor graph representation of the D-PC and SD-PC, we propose two joint source and channel decoders: a joint belief propagation (J-BP) decoder, and a systematic joint belief propagation (SJ-BP) decoder. In addition, a biased extrinsic information transfer (B-EXIT) chart is developed for various decoders as a theoretical performance evaluation tool. Both B-EXIT and simulation results show that the performance of the proposed JSCC scheme has no error floor and outperforms the turbo-like BP decoder.

Redesign of Channel Codes for Joint Source-Channel Coding Systems over One-Dimensional Inter-Symbol-Interference Magnetic Recording Channels

Although the joint source-channel coding (JSCC) system based on double protograph low-density parity-check (DP-LDPC) codes has been shown to possess excellent error performance over additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels, it cannot perform well over one-dimensional inter-symbol-interference (OD-ISI) magnetic recording channels. In this study, a new JSCC system with a three-stage serially concatenated framework of Turbo equalization is firstly proposed for OD-ISI magnetic recording channels. Then, a modified joint protograph extrinsic information transfer (M-JPEXIT) algorithm is put forward to analyze the convergence-performance of the proposed system. By applying the M-JPEXIT algorithm, the channel codes are redesigned for this system to improve the error performance. Both the M-JPEXIT analysis and the bit-error-rate (BER) simulation results show the performance improvement of the proposed channel codes, especially in the water-fall region.

EXIT-Aided Scheduled Iterative MIMO Detection Under Non-Homogeneous Antenna Propagation Gain Scenarios

The non-homogeneous antenna propagation gain, potentially caused by the diverse large-scale fading effects in wireless communication channels, has a significant impact on the reliabilities of multiple-input multiple-out (MIMO) systems. We propose to utilize extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) to analyze the convergence characteristic of the factor graph (FG) based iterative MIMO detection mechanisms in an effective way. Based on the EXIT analysis, we propose a low-complexity scheduled algorithm for FG-based iterative MIMO detection, which speeds up the convergence of the mutual information exchange between the variable nodes and the observation nodes. To address the complexity issue in 5G new radio (NR) systems, where low-density parity check (LDPC) codes are adopted for data transmission, we also extend the proposed algorithm to concatenated detection and decoding in MIMO-LDPC systems to achieve low complexity. Simulation results show that the convergence speed of MIMO detection can be improved by at most 50%, while for the MIMO-LDPC system, the proposed algorithm can achieve 2 dB gain compared to the conventional minimum mean square error (MMSE) detection mechanism.