Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes for Decode-and-Forward in Erasure Relay Channel

We consider spatially-coupled protograph-based LDPC codes for the three terminal erasure relay channel. It is observed that BP threshold value, the maximal erasure probability of the channel for which decoding error probability converges to zero, of spatially-coupled codes, in particular spatially-coupled MacKay-Neal code, is close to the theoretical limit for the relay channel. Empirical results suggest that spatially-coupled protograph-based LDPC codes have great potential to achieve theoretical limit of a general relay channel.