Unequal Diversity LDPC Codes for Relay Channels

A novel protograph-based construction of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes for the relay channel is proposed, which provides an enhanced unequal error protection property named unequal diversity. The focus is on quasi-static fading channels and on the high-code-rate (R>1/2) regimes, for which (according to the Singleton bound) no full diversity can be achieved. In the proposed construction, some nodes (and the corresponding codeword fragment) associated with the code graph enjoy the diversity provided by the relay, whereas the remaining nodes do not experience any diversity. The proposed approach can be thus tailored to transmit information blocks with different priority levels. An extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) analysis is developed, which allows an accurate performance prediction over the considered channel model, and more in general over block-fading channels.