Coding for the Gaussian Relay Channel with Noisy Feedback

The Schalkwijk-Kailath (SK) scheme for the AWGN channel with noise-free feedback is well-known since its coding complexity grows linearly with the coding blocklength, and it is capacity-achieving and has extremely lower decoding error probability comparing with existing excellent codes such as LDPC and Polar codes. However, extension of SK scheme to more practical scenarios is challenging since it depends heavily on the feedback success. This paper aims to investigate how to design SK-type schemes for channels with intermittent feedback and establish the relationship between the coding blocklength, the desired decoding error probability, the achievable transmission rate and secrecy level of our proposed schemes. Specifically, first, for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel with intermittent noise-free feedback, a variation of the well-known Schalkwijk-Kailath (SK) scheme for the AWGN channel with noise-free feedback is proposed, and the corresponding achievable rate is characterized for given coding blocklength and decoding error probability. Subsequently, the proposed scheme is extended to channels with noisy intermittent feedback. To quantitatively evaluate the secrecy performance, we adopt the eavesdropper's normalized equivocation as the secrecy metric and analytically characterize the achievable secrecy level of the proposed schemes. In particular, we show that perfect weak secrecy, i.e., asymptotically vanishing information leakage rate, can be achieved under certain conditions. Numerical results show that for a given decoding error probability threshold, our proposed schemes require lower signal-to-noise ratio and significantly shorter coding blocklength comparing with LDPC code. The study of this paper may provide a way to construct efficient coding scheme for channels in the presence of intermittent feedback.

The use of open-loop coding can be easily extended to a closed-loop concatenated code if the transmitter has access to feedback. This can be done by introducing a feedback transmission scheme as an inner code. In this paper, this process is investigated for the case when a linear feedback scheme is implemented as an inner code and, in particular, over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel with noisy feedback. To begin, we look to derive an optimal linear feedback scheme by optimizing over the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). From this optimization, a linear feedback scheme is produced that is asymptotically optimal in the sense of blocklength-normalized SNR; it is then compared to other well-known schemes. Then, the linear feedback scheme is implemented as an inner code to a concatenated code over the AWGN channel with noisy feedback. This code shows improvements not only in error exponent bounds, but also in bit error rate (BER) and frame error rate (FER). It is also shown that if the concatenated code has total blocklength L and the inner code has blocklength, N, the inner code blocklength should scale as N = O(C/R), where C is the capacity of the channel and R is the rate of the concatenated code. Simulations with low-density parity-check (LDPC) and turbo codes are provided to display practical applications and their error rate benefits.

We show how to exploit a noisy feedback link to implement high-reliability communication. We specify a variable-length coding strategy that achieves the error exponent (in delay) of erasure decoding using any noisy feedback channel which has a positive zero-rate random coding error exponent. Building on this result, we give a second approach that, depending only on the capacity of the feedback link, achieves an error exponent up to half of the Burnashev exponent - the maximum exponent that can be achieved with a noiseless feedback link. The resulting exponent can be far larger than the exponent of erasure decoding, particularly at rates close to capacity

In this paper, we study the problem of stabilizability of LTI systems over both the forward (from the controller to the plant) and feedback (from the sensor to the controller) channel. We adopt the additive white noise (AWN) channel with a prescribed power constraint as our channel model. For first order systems, we derive explicitly the necessary and sufficient conditions for stabilizability and show the tradeoff between the minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) required for the forward and feedback channel. We also show explicitly that the use of two-parameter controller in this problem assumes better performance.

Achievable error exponents for the one-way with noisy feedback and two-way AWGN channels are derived for the transmission of a finite number of messages $M$ using fixed block length $n$, under the almost sure (AS) and the expected block (EXP) power constraints. In the one-way setting under noisy AWGN feedback, it is shown that under the AS constraint and when the feedback link is much stronger than the direct link, active feedback leads to a larger gain over the non-feedback error exponent than passive feedback. Under the EXP constraint, a previously known error exponent for the transmission of two messages is generalized to any arbitrary but finite number of messages $M$. In the two-way setting, where each user has its own message to send in addition to (possibly) aiding in the transmission of feedback for the opposite direction, error exponent regions are defined and derived for the first time for the AWGN two-way channel under both AS and EXP power constraints. It is shown that feedback or interaction may lead to error exponent gains in one direction, possibly at the expense of a decrease in the error exponents attained in the other direction. The relationship between $M$ and $n$ supported by our achievability strategies is explored.

In wireless communication systems, the intended receiver is able to obtain the perfect channel state information (CSI) as long as the training sequence is sufficiently long, and then through a quantized feedback channel (QFC), the transmitter gets imperfect CSI caused by the quantized noise. In general, the design of efficient coding schemes for wireless channels with imperfect CSI at the transmitter (I-CSIT) is difficult and challenging, and one possible method is to construct such a scheme by using channel feedback. In the literature, it has already been shown that the classical Schalkwijk-Kailath (SK) scheme for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel with noiseless feedback is a highly efficient coding scheme since its coding complexity is extremely low and the decoding error doubly exponentially decays as the coding blocklength tends to infinity. Existing SK-type schemes mainly focus on the case that perfect CSI is known at the transceiver, and adopt modulo lattice function to eliminate the impact of feedback channel noise (often considered as AWGN) on the performance of SK-type schemes. However, for channels with I-CSIT and QFC, this does not work since the distribution of quantized noise is unknown and I-CSIT brings additional non-convergence estimation error to the transceiver, leading to the application of SK-type schemes to practical wireless scenarios becomes challenging. In this paper, first, for the quasi-static fading channel with I-CSIT and QFC, we design a modulo lattice based SK-type scheme where the receiver adopts an auxiliary signal to decode the message, and numerical results show that the rate of our scheme almost approaches that of the same model with perfect CSI at the transceiver and noise-free feedback for some cases. Next, we further extend the above scheme to the two-path fading scenario, which is modeled as the two-ray channel with I-CSIT and QFC. Treating the signal of the second path as a relay, our extended scheme combines the amplify-and-forward relay strategy and the previously proposed scheme for the same model without ISI. However, this extended scheme cannot be applied to multi-path fading scenario, to this end, we propose a new SK-type scheme for the multi-path fading case. The intuition behind this scheme is to transform the multi-path fading channel into a fading MIMO channel by discrete fourier transform (DFT), and then apply the SK-type scheme to the MIMO channel in frequency domain and use inverse DFT to obtain the codeword in time domain. The study of this paper may provide a way to design efficient coding scheme for fading channels in the presence of imperfect CSI and quantized feedback.

In this paper, we study a MIMO fading broadcast channel where each receiver has perfect channel state information while the channel state information at the transmitter is acquired by explicit channel feedback from each receiver through capacity-constrained feedback links. Two feedback schemes are considered, i.e., the analog and digital feedback. We analyze the achievable ergodic rates of zero-forcing dirty-paper coding (ZF-DPC), which is a nonlinear precoding scheme inherently superior to linear ZF beamforming. Closed-form lower and upper bounds on the achievable ergodic rates of ZF-DPC with Gaussian inputs and uniform power allocation are derived. Based on the closed-form rate bounds, sufficient and necessary conditions on the feedback channels to ensure nonzero and full downlink multiplexing gain are obtained. Specifically, for analog feedback in both AWGN and Rayleigh fading feedback channels, it is sufficient and necessary to scale the average feedback link SNR linearly with the downlink SNR in order to achieve the full multiplexing gain. While for the random vector quantization-based digital feedback with angle distortion measure in an error-free feedback link, it is sufficient and necessary to scale the number of feedback bits B per user as where M is the number of transmit antennas and is the average downlink SNR.

End-to-end learning of communication systems enables joint optimization of transmitter and receiver, implemented as deep neural network-based autoencoders, over any type of channel and for an arbitrary performance metric. Recently, an alternating training procedure was proposed which eliminates the need for an explicit channel model. However, this approach requires feedback of real-valued losses from the receiver to the transmitter during training. In this paper, we first show that alternating training works even with a noisy feedback channel. Then, we design a system that learns to transmit real numbers over an unknown channel without a preexisting feedback link. Once trained, this feedback system can be used to communicate losses during alternating training of autoencoders. Evaluations over additive white Gaussian noise and Rayleigh block-fading channels show that end-to-end communication systems trained using the proposed feedback system achieve the same performance as when trained with a perfect feedback link.

This paper is concerned with the Gaussian relay channel (GRC) under the one-code constraint, where the source and the relay utilize the same code to send message. An advantage of such one-code constraint is that the error propagation resulting from re-encoding can be mitigated as the relay can forward directly the decoded “codeword” to the destination. The maximal achievable rate of the considered GRC is derived using the technique of superposition block Markov encoding based on the single code. Moreover, the forward-backward (FB) decoding strategies over the sliding window are developed both at the destination and at the relay. When LDPC codes are applied to the GRC system, a practical FB message passing decoding algorithm is presented. Simulation results show that the decoding performance can be improved as the window length increases and a small length (no greater than 4) is good enough for the FB decoding, and that re-encoding at relay may degrade the decoding performance at the destination.

SummaryIn this paper, we propose a general model to study the full‐duplex non‐coherent (NC) decode‐and‐forward Gaussian relay channel (RC) with energy harvesting (EH) nodes, called NC‐EH‐ , in three cases: (i) no energy transfer (ET), (ii) one‐way ET from the source (S) to the relay (R), and (iii) two‐way ET. We consider the problem of optimal power allocation in NC‐EH‐ in order to maximize the total transmitted bits from S to the destination in a given time duration. General stochastic energy arrivals at S and R with known EH times and values are assumed. In NC‐EH‐ with no ET, the complicated min‐max optimization form along with its constraints make the problem intractable. It is shown that this problem can be transformed to a solvable convex form; however, convex optimization solution does not provide the structural properties of the optimal solution. Therefore, following an alternative perspective, we investigate conditions on harvesting process of S and R where we find optimal algorithmic solution. Further, we propose some suboptimal algorithms and provide some examples, in which the algorithms are optimal. Moreover, we find a class of problems for NC‐EH‐ with one‐way ET from S to R, where the optimal algorithmic solution is devised. For NC‐EH‐ with two‐way ET, we propose general optimal algorithmic solution. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed algorithms are evaluated numerically and compared with optimal numerical convex optimization tools. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the stabilisability and the performance of stochastic disturbance attenuation of a Markov jump linear system whose feedback channel is subject to an additive white Gaussian noise. First an inequality of differential entropy of random vectors under Markov switching is presented. Then by the concept of entropy power and the theory of information, a necessary condition to stabilise the system is obtained. This requires that the signal-to-noise ratio in the feedback channel is bigger than a specified value. Furthermore, to evaluate the performance of disturbance attenuation, a lower bound of the maximum fluctuation of the system state is presented.

A secret key agreement framework involving three users is considered in which each of the users 1 and 2 intends to share a secret key with user 3 and users 1 and 2 are eavesdroppers with respect to each other. There is a generalized discrete memoryless multiple access channel (GDMMAC) from users 1 and 2 to user 3 where the three users receive outputs from the channel. Furthermore, there is a feedback channel from user 3 to users 1 and 2 through which user 3 sends information extracted from the received output from the GDMMAC to increase the key rates. We consider both noiseless and noisy feedback. In the case of noiseless feedback, a public channel of unlimited capacity from user 3 to users 1 and 2 is used only once. In the case of noisy feedback, a noisy broadcast channel (BC) from user 3 to users 1 and 2 can be repeatedly used, like GDMMAC. In both setups, inner bounds of the secret key capacity region are derived. The secret key capacity region is derived in some special cases where the channel inputs and outputs form Markov chains in certain orders. For illustration, the corresponding results are also derived and discussed for Gaussian channels. The cases with noiseless feedback, noisy feedback, and no feedback at all are compared with each other.

The increasing demand for high-density and high-speed digital optical recording systems has made the development of advanced coding and signal processing techniques for fast and reliable data recovery increasingly important. In recent years, the parity-check (PC)-code-based reception technique has been widely studied for magnetic recording systems, and it is projected to be highly promising for high-density optical recording. The PC code is an inner error correction code (ECC), which can detect dominant short error events of the system, using only a few parity bits. This reduces the loss in error correction capability of the outer ECC due to random short errors and results in a simple and efficient solution to improve the overall performance. This thesis is dedicated to the design and analysis of PCcode- based recording systems to achieve higher recording capacity with low implementation complexity, for high-density blue laser disc systems. In particular, most of the key components of the PC-code-based optical recording system have been designed and optimized for different recording densities, and different proportions of white noise and media noise. During the development of advanced coding and detection techniques, it becomes necessary to investigate the system’s performance with different coding schemes and recording densities. In Chapter 2 of the thesis, we propose a generalized Braat-Hopkins model for optical recording channels, which provides a fair basis for the performance comparison of detection schemes over different coding schemes and recording densities, for channels with additive, white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and media noise. Various basic issues associated with the PC-code-based systems are investigated in Chapter 3. These include bounds for bit error rates and error event probabilities, the dominant error events at channel detector output, different PC codes, simple and efficient post-processors, the impact of error events that are split across data block boundaries and the corresponding remedy, as well as the effects of code rates and recording densities. Simulation results show that a 4-bit PC code achieves the best performance. The corresponding bit error rates (BERs) are very close to the performance bounds, at both nominal and high densities. Constrained codes, which serve as a key component in the read-write channel of data storage systems, are desired to have a high code rate with low-complexity encoder/decoder. In Chapter 4, we investigate the design of certain capacity-approaching constrained codes for optical recording systems. In particular, we derive analytically the relationship between the number of encoder states and the maximum size of these codes. We identify the minimum number of encoder states that maximizes the code rate, for any desired codeword length. The design of constrained PC codes is key to the development of PCcode- based systems, and the systematic design of efficient constrained PC codes remains a challenging problem. In Chapter 5, we propose a general and systematic code design technique for constructing capacity-approaching constrained PC codes, which can detect any type of error events of the system, with the minimum code rate loss. Compared to the rate 2/3 code without parity, the newly designed constrained 4-bit PC code achieves a performance gain of 2 dB at nominal density, and 1.5 dB at high density, at BER = 10-5. As the dominant noise for high-density optical recording systems, media noise severely degrades the performance of channel detectors and postprocessors that are designed for AWGN. In Chapter 6, we propose two novel modifications to the bit detector to combat media noise. We further develop a data-dependent post-processing scheme for error correction. Compared to the system designed without considering media noise and without PC codes, the overall performance gain of the developed scheme can be more than 11 dB at high media noise levels. In data storage systems, the ECC failure rate (EFR) serves as the ultimate measure of the data recovery performance. In Chapter 7, we develop semi-analytical approaches for estimating the EFR, and analyze EFRs for the developed PC-code-based systems, for the cases without and with interleaving. Our analysis shows that with the optimum interleaving degrees, compared to the rate 9/13 code without parity, the 2-bit PC code achieves a gain of around 0.5 dB, and the 4-bit PC code gains 0.6 dB, at high record ing density and EFR = 10-16. The thesis concludes in Chapter 8 with some suggestions for further work.

We present a nested lattice-code-based strategy that achieves the random-coding based Compress-and-Forward (CF) rate for the three node Gaussian relay channel. To do so, we first outline a lattice-based strategy for the $(X+Z_1,X+Z_2)$ Wyner-Ziv lossy source-coding with side-information problem in Gaussian noise, a re-interpretation of the nested lattice-code-based Gaussian Wyner-Ziv scheme presented by Zamir, Shamai, and Erez. We use the notation $(X+Z_1,X+Z_2)$ Wyner-Ziv to mean that the source is of the form $X+ Z_1$ and the side-information at the receiver is of the form $X+ Z_2$, for independent Gaussian $X, Z_1$ and $Z_2$. We next use this $(X+Z_1,X+Z_2)$ Wyner-Ziv scheme to implement a "structured" or lattice-code-based CF scheme which achieves the classic CF rate for Gaussian relay channels. This suggests that lattice codes may not only be useful in point-to-point single-hop source and channel coding, in multiple access and broadcast channels, but that they may also be useful in larger relay networks. The usage of lattice codes in larger networks is motivated by their structured nature (possibly leading to rate gains) and decoding (relatively simple) being more practically realizable than their random coding based counterparts. We furthermore expect the proposed lattice-based CF scheme to constitute a first step towards a generic structured achievability scheme for networks such as a structured version of the recently introduced "noisy network coding". ; Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures

Nonlinear feedback communication schemes proposed up to now have been restricted to coherent channels. This paper describes a scheme which not only lacks this restriction but yields performance better than the coherent ones that have been analyzed. Block coded orthogonal signals together with incoherent receiver forms are used on both forward and feedback links. It is assumed that the transmitter has a high peak power capability. However, it is shown that by increasing the code length the duty cycle of this mode can be made sufficiently small so that the contribution to average power is negligible. It is found that the probability of error for every message is upper-bounded by exp[-E(R)T], where T represents the code length and E(R) is a function of the transmission rate, R , the capacities of the forward and feedback channels, and a parameter that determines the rate with which the duty cycle decreases with increasing code length. When the forward and feedback capacities are equal, say C , the E(R) versus R curve can be made to approach a curve that starts at 2C and decreases monotonically to the value C at R = C . This contrasts with the corresponding curve without feedback which starts at C/2 and decreases to zero at R = C . The main advantage of information feedback over no feedback, namely E(R = C) > 0 , where C is the forward channel capacity, can also be obtained even when the capacity of the feedback channel is less than that of the forward. To obtain such behavior, existing schemes require that the feedback channel capacity be at least as great as the forward.