A Rate-Compatible Sphere-Packing Analysis of Feedback Coding with Limited Retransmissions

Recent work by Polyanskiy et al. and Chen et al. has excited new interest in using feedback to approach capacity with low latency. Polyanskiy showed that feedback identifying the first symbol at which decoding is successful allows capacity to be approached with surprisingly low latency. This paper uses Chen's rate-compatible sphere-packing (RCSP) analysis to study what happens when symbols must be transmitted in packets, as with a traditional hybrid ARQ system, and limited to relatively few (six or fewer) incremental transmissions. Numerical optimizations find the series of progressively growing cumulative block lengths that enable RCSP to approach capacity with the minimum possible latency. RCSP analysis shows that five incremental transmissions are sufficient to achieve 92% of capacity with an average block length of fewer than 101 symbols on the AWGN channel with SNR of 2.0 dB. The RCSP analysis provides a decoding error trajectory that specifies the decoding error rate for each cumulative block length. Though RCSP is an idealization, an example tail-biting convolutional code matches the RCSP decoding error trajectory and achieves 91% of capacity with an average block length of 102 symbols on the AWGN channel with SNR of 2.0 dB. We also show how RCSP analysis can be used in cases where packets have deadlines associated with them (leading to an outage probability).Comment: To be published at the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, Cambridge, MA, USA. Updated to incorporate reviewers' comments and add new figure

Using Channel Output Feedback to Increase Throughput in Hybrid-ARQ

Hybrid-ARQ protocols have become common in many packet transmission systems due to their incorporation in various standards. Hybrid-ARQ combines the normal automatic repeat request (ARQ) method with error correction codes to increase reliability and throughput. In this paper, we look at improving upon this performance using feedback information from the receiver, in particular, using a powerful forward error correction (FEC) code in conjunction with a proposed linear feedback code for the Rayleigh block fading channels. The new hybrid-ARQ scheme is initially developed for full received packet feedback in a point-to-point link. It is then extended to various different multiple-antenna scenarios (MISO/MIMO) with varying amounts of packet feedback information. Simulations illustrate gains in throughput.Comment: 30 page

Feedback Communication Systems with Limitations on Incremental Redundancy

This paper explores feedback systems using incremental redundancy (IR) with noiseless transmitter confirmation (NTC). For IR-NTC systems based on {\em finite-length} codes (with blocklength $N$) and decoding attempts only at {\em certain specified decoding times}, this paper presents the asymptotic expansion achieved by random coding, provides rate-compatible sphere-packing (RCSP) performance approximations, and presents simulation results of tail-biting convolutional codes. The information-theoretic analysis shows that values of $N$ relatively close to the expected latency yield the same random-coding achievability expansion as with $N = \infty$. However, the penalty introduced in the expansion by limiting decoding times is linear in the interval between decoding times. For binary symmetric channels, the RCSP approximation provides an efficiently-computed approximation of performance that shows excellent agreement with a family of rate-compatible, tail-biting convolutional codes in the short-latency regime. For the additive white Gaussian noise channel, bounded-distance decoding simplifies the computation of the marginal RCSP approximation and produces similar results as analysis based on maximum-likelihood decoding for latencies greater than 200. The efficiency of the marginal RCSP approximation facilitates optimization of the lengths of incremental transmissions when the number of incremental transmissions is constrained to be small or the length of the incremental transmissions is constrained to be uniform after the first transmission. Finally, an RCSP-based decoding error trajectory is introduced that provides target error rates for the design of rate-compatible code families for use in feedback communication systems.Comment: 23 pages, 15 figure

Optimizing HARQ and relay strategies in limited feedback communication systems

One of the key challenges for future communication systems is to deal with fast changing channels due to the mobility of users. Having a robust protocol capable of handling transmission failures in unfavorable channel conditions is crucial, but the feedback capacity may be greatly limited due to strict latency requirements. This paper studies the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) techniques involved in re-transmissions when decoding failures occur at the receiver and proposes a scheme that relies on codeword bundling and adaptive incremental redundancy (IR) to maximize the overall throughput in a limited feedback system. In addition to the traditional codeword extension IR bits, this paper introduces a new type of IR, bundle parity bits, obtained from an erasure code across all the codewords in a bundle. The type and number of IR bits to be sent as a response to a decoding failure is optimized through a Markov Decision Process. In addition to the single link analysis, the paper studies how the same techniques generalize to relay and multi-user broadcast systems. Simulation results show that the proposed schemes can provide a significant increase in throughput over traditional HARQ techniques

When all information is not created equal

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-196).Following Shannon's landmark paper, the classical theoretical framework for communication is based on a simplifying assumption that all information is equally important, thus aiming to provide a uniform protection to all information. However, this homogeneous view of information is not suitable for a variety of modern-day communication scenarios such as wireless and sensor networks, video transmission, interactive systems, and control applications. For example, an emergency alarm from a sensor network needs more protection than other transmitted information. Similarly, the coarse resolution of an image needs better protection than its finer details. For such heterogeneous information, if providing a uniformly high protection level to all parts of the information is infeasible, it is desirable to provide different protection levels based on the importance of those parts. The main objective of this thesis is to extend classical information theory to address this heterogeneous nature of information. Many theoretical tools needed for this are fundamentally different from the conventional homogeneous setting. One key issue is that bits are no more a sufficient measure of information. We develop a general framework for understanding the fundamental limits of transmitting such information, calculate such fundamental limits, and provide optimal architectures for achieving these limits. Our analysis shows that even without sacrificing the data-rate from channel capacity, some crucial parts of information can be protected with exponential reliability. This research would challenge the notion that a set of homogenous bits should necessarily be viewed as a universal interface to the physical layer; this potentially impacts the design of network architectures. This thesis also develops two novel approaches for simplifying such difficult problems in information theory. Our formulations are based on ideas from graphical models and Euclidean geometry and provide canonical examples for network information theory. They provide fresh insights into previously intractable problems as well as generalize previous related results.by Shashibhushan Prataprao Borade.Ph.D