LDPC Options for Next Generation Wireless Systems

Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes have recently drawn much attention due to their nearcapacity error correction performance, and are currently in the focus of many standardization activities, e.g., IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.16e, and ETSI DVB-S. In this contribution, we discuss several aspects related to the practical application of such codes to wireless communications systems. We consider flexibility, memory requirements, enand decoding complexity and different variants of decoding algorithms for LDPC codes that enable to effectively trade-off error correction performance for implementation simplicity. We conclude that many of what have been considered significant disadvantages of LDPC codes (inflexibility, high encoding complexity, etc.) can be overcome by appropriate use of different algorithms and strategies that have been recently developed – making LDPC codes a highly attractive option for forward error correction for B3G/4G systems.