Performance comparison of channel coding schemes for 5G massive machine type communications

Abstract

Channel coding for the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication is currently facing new challenges as it needs to uphold diverse emerging applications and scenarios. Massive machine-type communication (mMTC) constitute one of the main usage scenarios in 5G systems, which promise to provide low data rate services to a large number of low power and low complexity devices. Research on efficient coding schemes for such use case is still ongoing and no decision has been made yet. Therefore, This paper compares the performance of different coding schemes, namely: tail-biting convolutional code (TBCC), low density parity check codes (LDPC), Turbo code and Polar codes, in order to select the appropriate channel coding technique for 5G-mMTC scenario. The considered codes are evaluated in terms of bit error rate (BER) and block error rate (BLER) for short information block lengths (K ≤ 256). We further investigate their Algorithmic complexity in terms of the number of basic operations. The Simulation results indicate that polar code with CRC-aided successive cancelation list decoder has better performance compared with other coding schemes for 5G-mMTC scenario.