On the thresholds of generalized LDPC convolutional codes based on protographs

A threshold analysis of terminated generalized LDPC convolutional codes (GLDPC CCs) is presented for the binary erasure channel. Different ensembles of protograph-based GLDPC CCs are considered, including braided block codes (BBCs). It is shown that the terminated PG-GLDPC CCs have better thresholds than their block code counterparts. Surprisingly, our numerical analysis suggests that for large termination factors the belief propagation decoding thresholds of PG-GLDPC CCs coincide with the ML decoding thresholds of the corresponding PG-GLDPC block codes.