Boosted Neural Decoders: Achieving Extreme Reliability of LDPC Codes for 6G Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a boosted neural min-sum decoder for LDPC codes that achieves ultra-reliable low-latency communication standards in 6G networks by significantly reducing the error floor and improving performance.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel boosted neural min-sum decoder with advanced training methods to overcome error floors in LDPC codes for 6G reliability requirements.

Findings

Achieves state-of-the-art error floor reduction.

Meets 6G xURLLC reliability standards with 5G LDPC codes.

Performs decoding without additional modules after training.

Abstract

Ensuring extremely high reliability in channel coding is essential for 6G networks. The next-generation of ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (xURLLC) scenario within 6G networks requires frame error rate (FER) below $10^{-9}$. However, low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, the standard in 5G new radio (NR), encounter a challenge known as the error floor phenomenon, which hinders to achieve such low rates. To tackle this problem, we introduce an innovative solution: boosted neural min-sum (NMS) decoder. This decoder operates identically to conventional NMS decoders, but is trained by novel training methods including: i) boosting learning with uncorrected vectors, ii) block-wise training schedule to address the vanishing gradient issue, iii) dynamic weight sharing to minimize the number of trainable weights, iv) transfer learning to reduce the required sample count, and v) data augmentation to expedite the sampling process. Leveraging these training strategies, the boosted NMS decoder achieves the state-of-the art performance in reducing the error floor as well as superior waterfall performance. Remarkably, we fulfill the 6G xURLLC requirement for 5G LDPC codes without a severe error floor. Additionally, the boosted NMS decoder, once its weights are trained, can perform decoding without additional modules, making it highly practical for immediate application. The source code is available at https://github.com/ghy1228/LDPC_Error_Floor.