  In this paper, we present a construction method of non-binary low-density
parity-check (LDPC) convolutional codes. Our construction method is an
extension of Felstroem and Zigangirov construction for non-binary LDPC
convolutional codes. The rate-compatibility of the non-binary convolutional
code is also discussed. The proposed rate-compatible code is designed from one
single mother (2,4)-regular non-binary LDPC convolutional code of rate 1/2.
Higher-rate codes are produced by puncturing the mother code and lower-rate
codes are produced by multiplicatively repeating the mother code. Simulation
results show that non-binary LDPC convolutional codes of rate 1/2 outperform
state-of-the-art binary LDPC convolutional codes with comparable constraint bit
length. Also the derived low-rate and high-rate non-binary LDPC convolutional
codes exhibit good decoding performance without loss of large gap to the
Shannon limits.
