Frame Codes For Distributed Coded Computation

Distributed computation is a framework used to break down a complex computational task into smaller tasks and distributing them among computational nodes. Erasure correction codes have recently been introduced and have become a popular workaround to the well known "straggling nodes" problem, in particular, by matching linear coding for linear computation tasks. It was observed that decoding tends to amplify the computation "noise", i.e., the numerical errors at the computation nodes. We propose taking advantage of the case that more nodes return than minimally required. We show how a clever construction of a polynomial code, inspired by recent results on robust frames, can significantly reduce the amplification of noise, and achieves graceful degradation with the number of straggler nodes.