Mitigation of Impulsive Noise Effect on the PLC Channel With QC–LDPC Codes as the Outer Coding Scheme

In this paper, the characteristics of irregular quasicyclic-low-density parity check (QC-LDPC) codes are examined when they are applied on a highly impulsive noise channel, such as the power-line-communications (PLC) channel. We study two decoding algorithms: 1) the sum product and 2) the bit-flipping algorithm, and how they affect the system´s performance. LDPC codes are introduced in combination with other coding schemes, such as Reed-Solomon and convolutional codes. We propose irregular QC-LDPC codes as outer codes for the PLC channel in combination with Reed-Solomon codes, due to their decoding characteristics. In addition, various code rates are used for each different coding scenario. We also test how common Reed-Solomon codes affect the system´s performance, such as the RS(63, 53), RS(511, 431), RS(127, 107), and RS(255, 239) codes. Furthermore, we propose an altered version of the sum-product decoding algorithm to enable its operation when QC-LDPC codes are used as the outer coding scheme in combination with Reed-Solomon codes. Regarding the system´s design, the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing transmission technique is utilized. We also take Zimmermann´s model into consideration for the PLC channel and Middleton´s noise model.