Reliability-based Error Detection for Feedback Communication with Low Latency

Abstract: This paper presents a reliability-based decoding scheme for variable-length coding with feedback and demonstrates via simulation that it can achieve higher rates than Polyanskiy et al.'s random coding lower bound for variable-length feedback (VLF) coding on both the BSC and AWGN channel. The proposed scheme uses the reliability output Viterbi algorithm (ROVA) to compute the word error probability after each decoding attempt, which is compared against a target error threshold and used as a stopping criterion to terminate transmission. The only feedback required is a single bit for each decoding attempt, informing the transmitter whether the ROVA-computed word-error probability is sufficiently low. Furthermore, the ROVA determines whether transmission/decoding may be terminated without the need for a rate-reducing CRC.