PEG-Like Design of Binary QC-LDPC Codes Based on Detecting and Avoiding Generating Small Cycles

In this paper, we propose a new multi-edge metric-constrained quasi-cyclic progressive edge-growth algorithm (MM-QC-PEGA), which is suitable for constructing both single- and multi-weighted (binary) QC low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with arbitrary lengths, rates, circulant sizes, and variable node (VN)-degree distributions. The MM-QC-PEGA is able to detect all cyclic-edge-set-minimum-virtual cycles (CMVCs), as it accurately computes the metric value of each CMVC with an a posteriori test. In addition, we propose a new greatest-common-divisor (GCD)-approximation for time efficiently approximating the metric value of a CMVC without a posteriori tests, and propose a new GCD-approximated MM-QC-PEGA (G-MM-QC-PEGA) by using the GCD-approximation to replace the a posteriori test involved in the MM-QC-PEGA. As a result, the G-MM-QC-PEGA is faster than the MM-QC-PEGA, and the CMVCs undetectable to the G-MM-QC-PEGA under multi- and single-weighted QC-LDPC code graphs have minimum lengths of eight and ten, respectively. Moreover, we propose a new masking technique that is efficient in masking the parity-check matrix consisting of an array of arbitrary circulants of the same size. Compared with the several existing works, our proposed algorithms could perform better or comparably in terms of avoiding generating small cycles and error performances. Our proposed algorithms somewhat perfect the works of QC-LDPC code construction.