Using Minors to Construct Generator Matrices for Quasi-Cyclic LDPC Codes.

This paper gives a simple method to construct generator matrices with polynomial entries (and hence offers an alternative encoding method to the one commonly used) for all quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (QC-LDPC) codes, even for those that are rank deficient. The approach is based on constructing a set of codewords with the desired total rank by using minors of the parity-check matrix. We exemplify the method on several well-known and standard codes. Moreover, we explore the connections between the minors of the parity-check matrix and the known upper bound on minimum distance and provide a method to compute the rank of any parity-check matrix representing a QC-LDPC code, and hence the dimension of the code, by using the minors of the corresponding polynomial parity-check matrix.