Achievable rates and forward-backward decoding algorithms for the Gaussian relay channels under the one-code constraint

This paper is concerned with the Gaussian relay channel (GRC) under the one-code constraint, where the source and the relay utilize the same code to send message. An advantage of such one-code constraint is that the error propagation resulting from re-encoding can be mitigated as the relay can forward directly the decoded “codeword” to the destination. The maximal achievable rate of the considered GRC is derived using the technique of superposition block Markov encoding based on the single code. Moreover, the forward-backward (FB) decoding strategies over the sliding window are developed both at the destination and at the relay. When LDPC codes are applied to the GRC system, a practical FB message passing decoding algorithm is presented. Simulation results show that the decoding performance can be improved as the window length increases and a small length (no greater than 4) is good enough for the FB decoding, and that re-encoding at relay may degrade the decoding performance at the destination.