Finite-length scaling of irregular LDPC code ensembles

We investigate the finite-length scaling methodology for irregular LDPC code ensembles when transmission takes place over the binary erasure channel (BEC). We first show how the necessary computations, namely the covariance evolution and the computation of the finite-length shift, can be accomplished in the irregular case. We then investigate how the obtained approximation can be used to predict the performance of irregular code ensembles and to optimize the degree distributions for finite-length codes.