Variable-Rate Incremental-Redundancy HARQ for Finite Blocklengths

Incremental redundancy (IR) hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) is a staple component of modern wireless systems, instrumental for efficient and reliable low-latency communication. To further improve the performance, the blocklengths—and therefore the incremental rates—of th...

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Main Authors: Yu Fu, Angel Lozano, Hongwen Yang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10883043/
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author Yu Fu
Angel Lozano
Hongwen Yang
author_facet Yu Fu
Angel Lozano
Hongwen Yang
author_sort Yu Fu
collection DOAJ
description Incremental redundancy (IR) hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) is a staple component of modern wireless systems, instrumental for efficient and reliable low-latency communication. To further improve the performance, the blocklengths—and therefore the incremental rates—of the various transmissions can be released from being fixed. This paper optimizes these variable blocklengths in truncated IR-HARQ, with the goal of maximizing the overall throughput at any desired operating point (meaning any combination of signal-to-noise ratio and target error rate). The optimization relies on a finite-blocklength information-theoretical analysis, whereby the block error rate emerges as a function of the channel capacity and the channel dispersion. Numerical results confirm that the optimized variable-rate IR-HARQ significantly outperforms its fixed-rate counterpart, both with ideal codes and with a 5G commercial code. Additionally, a heuristic scheme that mimics the behavior of the optimized solution, but is simpler to implement, is set forth and shown to essentially attain the same performance.
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spelling doaj-art-32e4a6f2e10f4134b6c4dd714f01965f2025-08-20T03:18:13ZengIEEEIEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society2644-125X2025-01-0161413142210.1109/OJCOMS.2025.354123810883043Variable-Rate Incremental-Redundancy HARQ for Finite BlocklengthsYu Fu0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8767-6035Angel Lozano1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3790-0494Hongwen Yang2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7541-8474School of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, ChinaDepartment of Engineering, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, SpainSchool of Information and Communication Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, ChinaIncremental redundancy (IR) hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) is a staple component of modern wireless systems, instrumental for efficient and reliable low-latency communication. To further improve the performance, the blocklengths—and therefore the incremental rates—of the various transmissions can be released from being fixed. This paper optimizes these variable blocklengths in truncated IR-HARQ, with the goal of maximizing the overall throughput at any desired operating point (meaning any combination of signal-to-noise ratio and target error rate). The optimization relies on a finite-blocklength information-theoretical analysis, whereby the block error rate emerges as a function of the channel capacity and the channel dispersion. Numerical results confirm that the optimized variable-rate IR-HARQ significantly outperforms its fixed-rate counterpart, both with ideal codes and with a 5G commercial code. Additionally, a heuristic scheme that mimics the behavior of the optimized solution, but is simpler to implement, is set forth and shown to essentially attain the same performance.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10883043/Blocklength allocationfinite blocklengthhybrid automatic repeat requestincremental redundancythroughput
spellingShingle Yu Fu
Angel Lozano
Hongwen Yang
Variable-Rate Incremental-Redundancy HARQ for Finite Blocklengths
IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society
Blocklength allocation
finite blocklength
hybrid automatic repeat request
incremental redundancy
throughput
title Variable-Rate Incremental-Redundancy HARQ for Finite Blocklengths
title_full Variable-Rate Incremental-Redundancy HARQ for Finite Blocklengths
title_fullStr Variable-Rate Incremental-Redundancy HARQ for Finite Blocklengths
title_full_unstemmed Variable-Rate Incremental-Redundancy HARQ for Finite Blocklengths
title_short Variable-Rate Incremental-Redundancy HARQ for Finite Blocklengths
title_sort variable rate incremental redundancy harq for finite blocklengths
topic Blocklength allocation
finite blocklength
hybrid automatic repeat request
incremental redundancy
throughput
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10883043/
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AT angellozano variablerateincrementalredundancyharqforfiniteblocklengths
AT hongwenyang variablerateincrementalredundancyharqforfiniteblocklengths