Structured LDPC Codes over Integer Residue Rings

This paper presents a new class of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes over Z2a represented by regular, structured Tanner graphs. These graphs are constructed using Latin squares defined over a multiplicative group of a Galois ring, rather than a finite field. Our approach yields codes for a wide range of code rates and more importantly, codes whose minimum pseudocodeword weights equal their minimum Hamming distances. Simulation studies show that these structured codes, when transmitted using matched signal sets over an additive-white-Gaussian-noise channel, can outperform their random counterparts of similar length and rate.