Adaptive Transmission in Cellular Networks: Fixed-Rate Codes with Power Control vs Physical Layer Rateless Codes

TL;DR

This paper compares adaptive transmission schemes in cellular networks, showing that fixed-rate codes need power control for good performance, while rateless codes perform robustly with constant power, based on analysis and simulations.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of fixed-rate codes with power control versus physical layer rateless codes in cellular downlink performance.

Findings

Rateless codes maintain performance without power control.

Fixed-rate codes require power adaptation for optimal performance.

Rateless codes offer robust performance with constant power.

Abstract

Adaptive transmission schemes are a crucial aspect of the radio design for future wireless networks. The paper studies the performance of two classes of adaptive transmission schemes in a cellular downlink. One class is based on physical layer rateless codes with constant transmit power and the other uses fixed-rate codes in conjunction with power adaptation. Using a simple stochastic geometry model for the cellular downlink, the focus is to compare the adaptivity of fixed-rate codes with power adaptation to that of physical layer rateless codes only. The performance of both rateless and fixed-rate coded adaptive transmission schemes are compared by evaluating the typical user success probability and rate achievable with the two schemes. Based on both the theoretical analysis and simulation results, it is clearly shown that fixed-rate codes require power control to maintain good performance whereas physical layer rateless codes with constant power can still provide robust performance.