Non-Orthogonal HARQ-CC over SDR: A GNU Radio-Based Implementation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Non-Orthogonal HARQ-CC scheme optimized for SDR platforms, enhancing spectral efficiency and reducing latency by allocating resources dynamically between new data and retransmissions.

Contribution

It proposes a novel N-HARQ-CC strategy that improves spectral efficiency and latency, validated through GNU Radio and USRP implementation.

Findings

Achieves approximately 0.5 bps/Hz spectral efficiency gain

Reduces transmission latency suitable for 6G networks

Limits superposition to two messages per round

Abstract

Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) schemes typically allocate all available resources to retransmit failed packets to ensure reliability. However, under stringent delay constraints, these schemes often exhibit low spectral efficiency and increased transmission latency. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an efficient Non-Orthogonal HARQ with Chase Combining (N-HARQ-CC) transmission strategy. Specifically, the proposed approach allocates a larger portion of retransmission resources to new data packets, reserving only a small fraction for retransmitting previously erroneous packets. This is based on the observation that only a small number of information bits are typically incorrect, enabling surplus communication resources to be utilized for transmitting new messages. The N-HARQ-CC scheme retransmits the same redundant version of a failed packet and employs Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) for decoding. To minimize complex packet scheduling and decoding complexity, the proposed scheme limits superposition to at most two messages per transmission round. At the receiver, Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC) is used to decouple the superimposed messages. The proposed N-HARQ-CC system was implemented using GNU Radio and USRP platforms for validation. Compared to conventional Type-I HARQ and HARQ-CC schemes, the proposed scheme achieves a significant improvement in spectral efficiency of approximately 0.5 bps/Hz, aligning with the low-latency requirements of 6G networks.