Generalized Unequal Error Protection Rateless Codes for Distributed Wireless Relay Networks

A generalization of unequal error protection (UEP) rateless codes and distributed rateless codes for distributed relay networks is proposed. We consider a two-hop relaying network where a single source transmits UEP rateless coded data to a destination via multiple relays. At the relays, the UEP rateless coded symbols are re-encoded by distributed rateless codes (DRC) to minimize the redundancy at the second hop. Previously introduced UEP rateless codes (URC) have supported a limited number of importance classes, mostly two classes, and targeted importance levels suited to a specific application. In this paper, however, we formulate an optimization problem to provide optimal URC in terms of the symbol error rate (SER) given any specific number and strengths of importance levels. Next, another optimization is proposed to obtain DRC with the minimum SER at a given overhead, which utilizes information of common symbols among the relays. The optimization methods are based on the AND-OR tree analysis and sequential quadratic programming. In addition, we evaluate the minimum achievable end-to-end symbol error rates over the wireless relay networks.