Design and Optimization of Protograph LDPC-Coded Multipulse PPM Systems over Poisson Channels

Combining powerful error-correction codes (ECCs) with multipulse pulse-position modulation (MPPM) has great potential to realize high-throughput and high-reliability transmissions in free-space optical (FSO) communication systems. This paper conducts an insightful investigation on protograph low-density parity-check (PLDPC)-coded MPPM systems over Poisson channels. To be specific, we first put forward a novel type of constellations, referred to as irregular pulse-distribution (IPD) constellations, for MPPM. We also conceive a bit-level rate-adaptive (RA) scheme, which can exploit the structural property of the IPD constellations to significantly improve the convergence performance at the price of transmission-rate loss. Furthermore, with the aid of a modified protograph extrinsic information transfer (PEXIT) algorithm, we construct three enhanced PLDPC codes with code rates 1/2, 2/3 and 3/4 that exhibit excellent decoding thresholds over Poisson channels. The proposed PLDPC-coded MPPM systems with the use of the IPD constellations, RA scheme, and enhanced PLDPC codes are superior to the state-of-the-art counterparts.