Semantic-Forward Relaying: A Novel Framework Towards 6G Cooperative Communications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a semantic-forward relaying framework for 6G cooperative communications that transmits semantic features to reduce payload and enhance robustness, supported by a joint source-channel coding algorithm.

Contribution

It presents a novel semantic-forward relaying scheme with a joint coding algorithm, improving data recovery and robustness in 6G networks.

Findings

SF relaying reduces payload size.

Improves robustness against intra-link errors.

Enhances decoding performance even in poor channel conditions.

Abstract

This letter proposes a novel relaying framework, semantic-forward (SF), for cooperative communications towards the sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks. The SF relay extracts and transmits the semantic features, which reduces forwarding payload, and also improves the network robustness against intra-link errors. Based on the theoretical basis for cooperative communications with side information and the turbo principle, we design a joint source-channel coding algorithm to iteratively exchange the extrinsic information for enhancing the decoding gains at the destination. Surprisingly, simulation results indicate that even in bad channel conditions, SF relaying can still effectively improve the recovered information quality.