Robust Rate-Compatible Punctured LDPC Convolutional Codes

A family of robust rate-compatible (RC) punctured low-density parity-check convolutional codes (LDPC-CCs) is derived from a time-invariant LDPC-CC mother code by periodically puncturing encoded bits (variable nodes) with respect to several criteria: (1) ensuring the recoverability of punctured variable nodes, (2) minimizing the number of completely punctured cycle trapping sets (CPCTSs), and (3) minimizing the number of punctured variable nodes involved in short cycles. The influence of (1) and (3) on iterative decoding performance is felt most strongly in the waterfall region of the bit-error-rate (BER) curve, while (2) has a larger effect in the error floor, or high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), region. We show that the length of the puncturing period is an important parameter when designing high rate punctured codes and, moreover, that extending the puncturing period can improve the decoding performance and extend the range of compatible rates. As examples, we obtain families of RC LDPC-CCs from several time-invariant LDPC-CC mother codes with monomial and binomial entries in their polynomial syndrome former matrices.