Towards a Unified Coding Scheme for 6G
It targets the problem of developing efficient channel coding for future 6G wireless systems, but it is incremental as it builds on existing 5G methods.
The paper addresses the need for a unified coding scheme to meet 6G's stringent requirements, exploring challenges and potential solutions without presenting specific results or numbers.
The growing demand for higher data rates necessitates continuous innovations in wireless communication systems, particularly with the emergence of 6G. Channel coding plays a crucial role in this evolution. In 5G systems, rate-adaptive raptor-like quasi-cyclic irregular low-density parity-check codes are used for the data link, while polar codes with successive cancellation list decoding handle short messages on the synchronization channel. However, to meet the stringent requirements of future 6G systems, a versatile and unified coding scheme should be developed - one that offers competitive error-correcting performance alongside low complexity encoding and decoding schemes that enable energy-efficient hardware implementations. This white paper outlines the vision for such a unified coding scheme. We explore various 6G communication scenarios that pose new challenges to channel coding and provide a first analysis of potential solutions.