Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Spinal codes are a new family ofcapacity-achievingrateless codes that have been shown to achieve better rate performance compared to Raptor codes, Strider codes, andratelessLow-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes. This correspondence addresses the performance limitations of Spinal codes in the finite blocklength regime, uncovering an error floor phenomenon at high Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNRs) under Maximum Likelihood (ML) Decoding. We develop an analytical expression to approximate the error floor and devise SNR thresholds at which the error floor initiates. Numerical results across Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN), Rayleigh, and Nakagami-m fading channels verify the accuracy of our analysis. The analysis and numerical results also show that transmitting more passes of symbols can lower the error floor but do not affect the SNR threshold, providing insights into the performance target, the operating SNR region, and the code design.
Authors: Aimin Li, Shaohua Wu, Xiaomeng Chen, Sumei Sun
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4410394606