US 8082478 B2
A method for retransmission of erroneous data in a communications system includes receiving data blocks at a receiver that have been generated in a transmitter by the use of an error correcting code. The received data blocks are decoded by a linear programming algorithm. One or more symbols in the decoded data block are identified by subjecting the symbols in the decoded data block to an integrality criterion. A retransmission of a part of the data block based on the one or more identified symbols is then initiated.
1. A method for retransmission of a data block portion in a communications system, comprising:
receiving data blocks at a receiver which have been generated by the use of an error correcting code in a transmitter;
decoding the received data blocks by linear programming decoding;
identifying one or more symbols in a decoded data block by subjecting the symbols in the decoded data block to an integrality criterion; and
initiating a retransmission of a part of the data block based on the one or more identified symbols.
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7. A receiver in a communications system for retransmission of a data block portion, comprising:
a receiving unit configured to receive data blocks that have been generated by the use of an error correcting code in a transmitter;
a linear programming decoder configured to decode the received data blocks;
an identification unit configured to subject the symbols in one decoded data block to an integrality criterion, thereby identifying one or more symbols in the one decoded data block; and
a retransmission requesting unit configured to request retransmission of a part of the data block based on the one or more identified symbols.
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13. A method for transmitting data in a communications system, comprising:
encoding data by using an error correcting code in a transmitter to obtain a block of encoded data;
transmitting the block of encoded data to a receiver;
receiving the data block corresponding to the transmitted block of encoded data at the receiver;
decoding the received data block by a linear programming algorithm to obtain a decoded data block;
identifying one or more symbols in the decoded data block by subjecting the symbols in the decoded data block to an integrality criterion; and
initiating a retransmission of a part of the data encoded in the block of encoded data, wherein the part of the data is dependent on the identified symbol or symbols.
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19. A communications system comprising a transmitter and a receiver for transmitting data in the communications system, wherein the transmitter comprises:
an encoding unit configured to encode data by using an error correcting code to obtain a block of encoded data;
a transmitting unit configured to transmit the block of encoded data to a receiver, and wherein the receiver comprises:
a receiving unit configured to receive a data block corresponding to the transmitted block of encoded data;
a receiving unit configured to decode the received data block by a linear programming algorithm to obtain a decoded data block;
an identification unit configured to identify one or more symbols in the decoded data block by subjecting the symbols in the decoded data block to an integrality criterion; and
a retransmission requesting unit configured to initiate a retransmission of a part of the data encoded in the block of encoded data, wherein the part of the data is dependent on the identified symbol or symbols.
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The invention relates to communications systems, and in particular to the retransmission of data by a transmitter in case the data can not be correctly decoded in a receiver.
ARQ (Automatic Repeat request) and in particular HARQ (Hybrid ARQ) error control methods for data transmission are used in a variety of communications systems to ensure reliable data transmission. These techniques usually comprise a retransmission of a data packet by the transmitter in case the data packet received at the receiver could not be decoded correctly.
Aspects of the invention are made more evident by way of example in the following detailed description of embodiments when read in conjunction with the attached drawing figures, wherein
In the following description and claims, the terms “coupled” and “connected”, along with derivatives may be used. It should be understood that these terms may indicate that two elements co-operate or interact with each other regardless of whether they are in direct physical or electrical contact or are not in direct contact with each other. Further, although binary symbols (bits) are used for the purpose of explanation in the following, higher order symbols may equally be applied.
It is to be noted that
The communications system depicted in
Any linear block code used in the encoder 101 can be described by its parity check matrix H. The parity check matrix H is of format m×n, i.e. has m rows and n columns. All codewords c=(c1, . . . , cn) must fulfill the equation
Codeword generation out of the dataword d may be written as
G is a generator matrix of the linear block code and is of k×n format with k=n−m (with k, n, m being integers). As known in the art, one or more generator matrices G may be computed from parity check matrix H. Operations in equations (1) and (2) are carried out in the binary field GF(2).
By way of example, let a binary linear block code be defined by
The codeword c is fed into the puncturing and modulation unit 102. Different puncturing and/or modulation schemes may be applied therein. After optional puncturing and adding of supplementary data, the codeword c is sent out by the transmitter 100 as a data block.
The output of the puncturing and modulation unit 102 is subjected to further data processing in one embodiment in order to prepare the signal for channel transmission. Such further data processing is not depicted in
At the receiver 200, the input signal 204 is obtained e.g. by a receive antenna (not shown) and subjected to signal processing not depicted in
The decoder 202 decodes the received vector r to yield the decoded word x. The n elements xi, i=1, . . . , n of the decoded word x are estimates of the n elements ci of codeword c. Decoder 202 is a so-called linear programming (LP) decoder in one embodiment. In an LP decoder a linear programming algorithm is used to compute the decoded word x out of the received vector r.
In the following, the operation of an LP decoder 202 will be described. LP decoding is an approximation to maximum-likelihood (ML) sequence decoding which is known to be the optimum decoding method in terms of minimizing block error probability. LP decoding relies on the concept that decoding of linear block codes can be interpreted as an integer LP problem. In mathematics, LP problems are known to involve the optimization of a linear objective function, subject to linear equality and inequality constraints. In LP decoding, the integer LP problem can be expressed as follows:
minimize yTx under the conditions
The inequality Ax<=b specifies a convex polyhedron over which the expression yTx (which is the objective function of the LP problem) is to be minimized. An example of how to derive the constraints A and b from H is set out further below.
The above LP problem (5) underlying LP decoding in decoder 202 is referred to as an integer LP problem because the elements xi of the decoded word x may only assume the values 0,1. Unfortunately, solving an integer LP is computationally intractable for codes used in practice. For this reason, the integer LP problem (5) is relaxed to the corresponding LP problem
minimize yTx under the conditions
More specifically, if the solution of the (relaxed) LP problem is integer (that means all values x are within set tolerance limits around integers), the solution is provably equal to the solution of the integer LP problem. But it is possible that the optimal solution of the (relaxed) LP problem contains non-integer values. In this case, the decoding method fails. However, there may exist LP formulations which have a partial optimality property. This means that, if some of the element values xi of the decoded word x are integers, these values agree with the values of an optimal solution (namely an ML solution) of the integer LP problem (5).
The computational complexity of LP decoding depends on the algorithm used for selecting the constraints A and b. An effective approach for LP decoding is disclosed in M. H. Taghavi N., P. H. Siegel, “Adaptive Methods for Linear Programming Decoding”, online available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.IT/0703123, which document is incorporated herein by reference. However, basically all known and future approaches for solving the integer LP problem or the LP problem may be applied for LP decoding in the LP decoder 202 of the invention. In the following, a simple approach for deriving constraints A and b out of the parity check matrix H as set out in equation (3) will be demonstrated by way of example. Again, for the sake of simplicity, the parity check matrix H used here for the purpose of demonstration is much smaller than the parity check matrices of practically used LDPC codes.
Matrix H can be used to generate a graph which is an equivalent representation of matrix H. This graph is referred to as a Tanner graph and is illustrated in
Given the parity check matrix H of equation (3), as shown in
For the H matrix of equation (3) this results in
It is to be noted that no parity check (see equation (1)) or other computation has to be performed on the decoding result x in order to obtain knowledge about the correctness of the decoding. The information whether or not a bit is decodable can be directly obtained from the decoding result x by a simple integrality check. In particular, if an element of the decoded word x is found to be non-integral, no assumption on the true integral bit value of this element has to be made for subsequent processing. Further, at least in the ideal case in which a solution of the relaxed LP problem strictly satisfies a partial optimality property, the knowledge about undecodable data may be maximal (i.e. individual to each bit).
On the basis of such detailed knowledge about undecodable data, it is possible to implement powerful algorithms for requesting bit retransmission. To this end, a retransmission request unit 207 is coupled to an output of the identification unit 203 and receives the information about the bits which have been found to be undecodable by the identification unit 203.
According to a first embodiment, the transmitter 100 is requested by the retransmission request unit 207 to retransmit only those bits which have been identified as undecodable. These bits may be requested via their addresses, i.e. by informing the transmitter 100 of the addresses of the undecodable bits. Such scheme would need a relatively high amount of up-link capacity (i.e. signaling capacity in the direction from the receiver 200 to the transmitter 100). There are several approaches to limit or reduce the up-link capacity needed. A first possibility would be to use a suitable source coding algorithm in the transmitter 100 to find a good trade-off between used up-link and down-link capacity. Another possibility is not to address each single undecodable bit individually by the retransmission request unit 207 but to request the retransmission of a predetermined part or parts of the codeword c which comprise(s) the bits identified to be undecodable. By way of example, the codeword c may be divided into a plurality of parts or sub-blocks each containing a plurality of bits and a sub-block is retransmitted if and only if at least one undecodable bit lying within this sub-block has been identified. Apparently, the number of sub-blocks in such codeword partition effects both the amount of up-link capacity and the amount of down-link capacity needed. More specifically, the higher the number of sub-blocks, the more up-link and the fewer down-link capacity has to be provided and vice versa. In any case, the amount of retransmitted bits (i.e. the down-link data traffic) can be reduced in comparison to conventional retransmission schemes in which either the whole data block or fixed bit patterns are used for retransmissions.
Further, it is possible to implement more sophisticated bit retransmission algorithms based on the integrality information supplied by the identification unit 203. For instance, a bit or a part of the codeword c containing this bit may be requested for retransmission dependent on whether other bits, which are linked to the bit under consideration, fail to satisfy the integrality criterion and therefore are identified by the identification unit 203. By way of example, bits xp1, xp2, . . . , xpl are linked to bit xp under consideration by a parity check equation (or any other mathematical equation expressing a relationship between bit xp and bits xp1, xp2, . . . , xpl in view of their decoding reliability). Then, bit cp corresponding to bit xp or a part of the codeword c including bit cp may be requested for retransmission only if a sufficient large number of related bits xp1, xp2, . . . , xpl fail to meet the integrality criterion. Even if bit xp satisfies the integrality criterion (i.e. is not identified by the identification unit), such retransmission may be initiated in this case. As a further example, assuming again bit xp failed the integrality criterion, a retransmission of bit cp or a part of the codeword c containing this bit may be omitted if a sufficient large number of the related bits xp1, xp2, . . . , xpl satisfy the integrality criterion.
Thus, the retransmission algorithm may solely depend on the results of the integrality information supplied by the identification unit 203. Alternatively, the retransmission algorithm optionally may further depend on the outcome of additional information such as e.g. the results of a CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) applied on the decoded word x. If the decoded word x passes the CRC, no retransmission is requested even if one or more bits of the decoded word x fail to comply with the integrality criterion, i.e. are identified by the identification unit 203. Such CRC unit (not shown) may be coupled to the output of the identification unit 203 and a control signal (CRC passed/CRC failed) generated in the CRC unit may be fed back to the retransmission request unit 207 to allow the retransmission request unit 207 to use the CRC information.
Often in practice, the decoded word x is obtained by combining the retransmitted vectors to previously received vectors r or log-likelihood ratio vectors y and using such combined vector for LP decoding. This combination (not shown in
In a practical embodiment, by way of example, a short LDPC code of length 96 bits with a code rate 50/96 has been used. The code is referred to as 96.3.963 and disclosed in Encyclopedia of Sparse Graph Codes, online available at: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/codes/data.html. This and all other codes disclosed in this document may be used in encoder 101 for encoding and are incorporated in this document by reference.
Code 96.3.963 is represented by a parity check matrix H having n=96 columns and m=48 rows. Because H has two linear dependent rows, the length of the dataword d is 50 bits. The LP decoder 202 uses a LP algorithm as described in M. H. Taghavi N., P. H. Siegel, “Adaptive Methods for Linear Programming Decoding”, online available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.IT/0703123, and exemplified by way of example before. It was found by computer simulations that lowering the amount of retransmitted bits according to the inventive concept increases the throughput of the system at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values.
The simulations results show that above approximately −3 dB of Eb/N0, the performance of the proposed method in terms of throughput is significantly (about 1 dB) better than the method of retransmitting whole data blocks. In this example, a LP formulation without a partial optimality property was used. When using a linear programming formulation having a partial optimality property, an additional performance gain may be expected.
While the invention has been illustrated and described with respect to one or more implementations, alterations and/or modifications may be made to the illustrated examples without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims. In particular regard to the various functions performed by the above described components or structures (assemblies, devices, circuits, systems, etc.), the terms (including a reference to a “means”) used to describe such components are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, to any component or structure which performs the specified function of the described component (e.g., that is functionally equivalent), even though not structurally equivalent to the disclosed structure which performs the function in the herein illustrated exemplary implementations of the invention. In addition, while a particular feature of the invention may have been disclosed with respect to only one of several implementations, such feature may be combined with one or more other features of the other implementations as may be desired and advantageous for any given or particular application. Furthermore, to the extent that the terms “including”, “includes”, “having”, “has”, “with”, or variants thereof are used in either the detailed description and the claims, such terms are intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term “comprising”.