Ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) scenario for 6G drives the interest in studying and development of existing and new universal decoding algorithms capable of providing near-optimum error-correcting performance for short block length codes with ultimate goal of providing low latency and moderate complexity. In this paper we consider a new universal decoding technique based on randomized likelihood (RL) rule that may be implemented for practical use in the future. U sing this rule we get the message estimate as a single sample of the message vector from a posterior distribution of messages given the received signal. A soft-decision implementation of RL decoding algorithm is suggested. After suggesting further complexity optimization, the new algorithm is compared to other well-known universal decoders, such as ordered-statistics decoding (OSD) and guessing random additive noise decoding (GRAND). The simulation results for short codes with different rates are provided for binary-input additive white Gaussian noise (BAWGN) communication channel.
Ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) scenario for 6G drives the interest in studying and development of existing and new universal decoding algorithms capable of providing near-optimum error-correcting performance for short block length codes with ultimate goal of providing low latency and moderate complexity. In this paper we consider a new universal decoding technique based on randomized likelihood (RL) rule that may be implemented for practical use in the future. U sing this rule we get the message estimate as a single sample of the message vector from a posterior distribution of messages given the received signal. A soft-decision implementation of RL decoding algorithm is suggested. After suggesting further complexity optimization, the new algorithm is compared to other well-known universal decoders, such as ordered-statistics decoding (OSD) and guessing random additive noise decoding (GRAND). The simulation results for short codes with different rates are provided for binary-input additive white Gaussian noise (BAWGN) communication channel.
Ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) in 6G networks is characterized by very high reliability and very low latency to enable mission-critical applications. The ability of a coding scheme to support diverse use cases requires flexibility on the part of the decoder. High reliability and low latency require decoders with improved error rate performance and reduced complexity. This article investigates candidate universal decoding algorithms for 6G communication scenarios. Universal decoders work on a wide range of error-correcting codes, making them scalable for different communication protocols. This article undertakes the comparative analysis and performance evaluation of the code-agnostic decoding schemes, including automorphism ensemble (AED), guessing random additive noise (GRAND), ordered statistics (OSD), belief propagation (BPD), bit flipping (BFD), and their variants. Simulations are carried out in MATLAB (R2024a) for the error rate performance of decoders, and plots are provided for the comparative analysis from the results of inferred data. The key findings in this paper highlight the competitive advantage of universal decoding techniques in comparison to the standardized CA-SCL decoding of polar code. Consequently, this work will help in identifying more efficient decoding algorithms for potential 6G URLLC applications. We aim to provide an insight into the scalability of universal decoding techniques by exploring their key performance metrics and comparing their performances.
Error correction techniques traditionally focus on the co-design of restricted code-structures in tandem with code-specific decoders that are computationally efficient when decoding long codes in hardware. Modern applications are, however, driving demand for ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), rekindling interest in the performance of shorter, higher-rate error correcting codes, and raising the possibility of revisiting universal, code-agnostic decoders. To that end, here we introduce a soft-detection variant of Guessing Random Additive Noise Decoding (GRAND) called Ordered Reliability Bits GRAND that can accurately decode any moderate redundancy block-code. It is designed with efficient circuit implementation in mind, and determines accurate decodings while retaining the original hard detection GRAND algorithm's suitability for a highly parallelized implementation in hardware. ORBGRAND is shown to provide excellent soft decision block error performance for codes of distinct classes (BCH, CA-Polar and RLC) with modest complexity, while providing better block error rate performance than CA-SCL, a state of the art soft detection CA-Polar decoder. ORBGRAND offers the possibility of an accurate, energy efficient soft detection decoder suitable for delivering URLLC in a single hardware realization.
Modern applications are driving demand for ultra-reliable low-latency communications, rekindling interest in the performance of short, high-rate error correcting codes. To that end, here we introduce a soft-detection variant of Guessing Random Additive Noise Decoding (GRAND) called Ordered Reliability Bits GRAND that can decode any moderate redundancy block-code. For a code of n bits, it avails of no more than ⎾log2(n)⏋ bits of code-book-independent quantized soft detection information per received bit to determine an accurate decoding while retaining the original algorithm’s suitability for a highly parallelized implementation in hardware. ORBGRAND is shown to provide similar block error performance for codes of distinct classes (BCH, CA-Polar and RLC) with low complexity, while providing better block error rate performance than CA-SCL, a state of the art soft detection CA-Polar decoder.
To achieve ultra-high reliability and ultra-low latency required for Beyond 5G or 6G, low error rate decoding method is needed with short code lengths and high code rates. Additionally, a universal decoding method that can be applied to any code which appears in the future be desirable. The maximum likelihood decoding is the best decoding method in information theory, but it is considered difficult to implement due to its huge computational requirements. Recently, Soft GRAND (SGRAND) has been proposed as an effective decoding method for any high-rate, short code length block code in any continuous channel. This method obtains the same decoding result as the maximum likelihood decoding by checking the most likely noise sequantially. However, SGRAND has a problem in which the size of the noise candidate list held internally increases linearly with each noise check. This paper proposes a method to reduce the size of the candidate list in SGRAND, while maintaining the same decoding results as maximum likelihood decoding, by modifying the noise candidate generation algorithm in SGRAND.
Maximum Likelihood (ML) decoding of forward error correction codes is known to be optimally accurate, but is not used in practice as it proves too challenging to efficiently implement. Here we propose a development of a previously described hard detection ML decoder called Guessing Random Additive Noise Decoding (GRAND). We introduce Soft GRAND (SGRAND), a ML decoder that fully avails of soft detection information and is suitable for use with any arbitrary high-rate, short-length block code. We assess SGRAND's performance on Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)-aided Polar (CA-Polar) codes, which will be used for all control channel communication in 5G New Radio (NR), comparing its accuracy with CRC-Aided Successive Cancellation List decoding (CA-SCL), a state-of-the-art soft-information decoder specific to CA-Polar codes.
The ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC), one of the three main scenarios in the fifth-generation (5G) mobile communication system, is promising to be used in various emerging applications with stringent latency and performance requirements. Recently, the guessing random additive noise decoding (GRAND) is proposed, which can perform well for the URLLC due to its excellent error-correction performance with short code length. Compared to other variants of the GRAND, the ordered reliability bits GRAND (ORBGRAND) can provide a good trade-off between error-correction performance and hardware overhead. In this work, the ORBGRAND with a reduced schedule for polar codes is implemented for the first time, which utilizes the special structure of the parity-check matrix of polar codes to reduce the decoding latency while keeping the error-correction performance unaltered. Besides, the sorter employed in the ORBGRAND decoder is well optimized to reduce the area occupation. At a target frame error rate of 10−5when using a (128, 105) 5G polar code, the average decoding latency of the proposed decoder is only 2.46 ns. Moreover, compared to the state-of-the-art ORBGRAND decoder, the proposed decoder can achieve 15% higher decoding throughput and 71% higher area efficiency without any error-correction performance loss.