Modified PEG Algorithm for Large Girth Quasi-Cyclic Protograph LDPC Codes

For a given base graph, the protograph can be obtained by a copy-and-permute procedure. If the permutation is cyclic, the protograph corresponds to a quasi-cyclic (QC) protograph LDPC code. The girth of the QC protograph LDPC code is determined by the girth of the base graph and the permutation shifts. Progressive edge-growth (PEG) construction builds up a Tanner graph, or equivalently a parity-check matrix, for an LDPC code by maximizing the local girth at symbol nodes in a greedy algorithm. In this paper, we introduce a modified version of the PEG algorithm which can construct large girth base graph and determine the optimal permutation shifts, simultaneously, for QC protograph LDPC codes. Simulation results show that the QC protograph LDPC codes constructed by the proposed modified PEG algorithm have good frame error rate (FER) performance over the AWGN channel.