Fountaincodes.PDFVIP

CAPACITY APPROACHING CODES DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION SPECIAL SECTION Fountain codes D.J.C. MacKay Abstract: Fountain codes are record-breaking sparse-graph codes for channels with erasures, such as the internet, where files are transmitted in multiple small packets, each of which is either received without error or not received. Standard file transfer protocols simply chop a file up into K packet- sized pieces, then repeatedly transmit each packet until it is successfully received. A back channel is required for the transmitter to find out which packets need retransmitting. In contrast, fountain codes make packets that are random functions of the whole file. The transmitter sprays packets at the receiver without any knowledge of which packets are received. Once the receiver has received any N packets, where N is just slightly greater than the original file size K, the whole file can be recovered. In the paper random linear fountain codes, LT codes, and raptor codes are reviewed. The computational costs of the best fountain codes are astonishingly small, scaling linearly with the file size. 1 Erasure channels forward channel is (1f )l bits, whether or not we have feedback. Reliable communication should be possible at Channels with erasures are of great importance. For this rate, with the help of an appropriate forward error- example, files sent over the internet are chopped into correcting code. packets, and each packet is either received without error or The wastefulness of the simple retransmission protocols is not received. Noisy channels to which good