Tree-Based Construction of LDPC Codes

We present a construction of LDPC codes that have minimum pseudocodeword weight equal to the minimum distance, and perform well with iterative decoding. The construction involves enumerating a d-regular tree for a fixed number of layers and employing a connection algorithm based on mutually orthogonal Latin squares to close the tree. Methods are presented for degrees d=p^s and d = p^s+1, for p a prime, -- one of which includes the well-known finite-geometry-based LDPC codes.