Joint Design of Source-Channel Codes with Linear Source Encoding Complexity and Good Channel Thresholds Based on Double-Protograph LDPC Codes

We propose the use of a lower or upper triangular sub-base matrix to replace the identity matrix in the source-check-channel-variable linking protomatrix of a double-protograph low-density parity-check joint-source-channel code (DP-LDPC JSCC). The elements along the diagonal of the proposed lower or upper triangular sub-base matrix are assigned as '1' and the other non-zero elements can take any non-negative integral values. Compared with the traditional DP-LDPC JSCC designs, the new designs show a theoretical channel threshold improvement of up to 0.41 dB and a simulated source symbol error rate improvement of up to 0.5 dB at an error rate of 10-6.