Nonbinary LDPC codes constructed based on cyclic difference families

This paper presents two classes of nonbinary LDPC codes based on cyclic difference families. A method of constructing nonbinary LDPC codes with various rates and over different fields is also proposed. A class of codes whose parity-check matrices consist of weight-2 columns, known as cycle codes, has girth 12, and it is also proved that these codes have a minimum distance of at least 6. Simulation results show that the constructed nonbinary LDPC codes outperform the binary and nonbinary codes derived from other constructions over the AWGN channel with BPSK modulation.