Implementation of fountain codes over fading channels

Fountain codes are a class of rateless codes. In this paper, the design and construction of Luby Transform (LT) codes, the first efficient class of Fountain Codes with fast encoding and decoding algorithms, is presented with new simulation results evaluating their performance over the Rayleigh fading channel. The degree distribution used in the design of LT codes is also described briefly. The results show that LT codes perform well over a fading channel with increasing erasure boundary size, but also with increasing complexity and bandwidth use.