A rateless code-i.e., a rate-compatible family of codes-has the property that
codewords of the higher rate codes are prefixes of those of the lower rate
ones. A perfect family of such codes is one in which each of the codes in the
family is capacity-achieving. We show by construction that perfect rateless
codes with low-complexity decoding algorithms exist for additive white Gaussian
noise channels. Our construction involves the use of layered encoding and
successive decoding, together with repetition using time-varying layer weights.
As an illustration of our framework, we design a practical three-rate code
family. We further construct rich sets of near-perfect rateless codes within
our architecture that require either significantly fewer layers or lower
complexity than their perfect counterparts. Variations of the basic
construction are also developed, including one for time-varying channels in
which there is no a priori stochastic model.Comment: 18 page
