Physical Layer Adaptation for Packet Radio Systems with Higher Layer Fountain Coding

We present low-complexity adaptive transmission protocols for use in tactical packet radio systems that employ higher layer fountain coding. Our protocols respond to fading and other time-varying propagation losses by adapting the modulation and channel coding used to transmit packets over the wireless channel. The operation of our protocols is controlled by simple receiver statistics that can be obtained during the demodulation of received packets. No pilot symbols, training, channel measurements, or channel estimation techniques are required by our protocols.