Error Correction with Systematic RLNC in Multi-Channel THz Communication Systems

Abstract: The terahertz (THz) frequency band (0.3-10THz) has the advantage of large available bandwidth and is a candidate to satisfy the ever increasing mobile traffic in wireless communications. However, the THz channels are often absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere, which can decrease the signal quality resulting in high bit error rate of received data. In this paper, we study the usage of systematic random linear network coding (sRLNC) for error correction in generic THz systems with with 2N parallel channels, whereby N main high-bitrate channels are used in parallel with N auxiliary channels with lower bit rate. The idea behind this approach is to use coded low-bit rate channels to carry redundant information from high-bit rate channels, and thus compensate for errors in THz transmission. The analytical results evaluate and compare the different scenarios of the THz system in term of the amount of coding redundancy, a code rate, transmission rate of auxiliary channels, the number of THz channels, the modulation format and transmission distance as required system configurations for a fault tolerant THz transmission.