Delay-Efficient and Reliable Data Relaying in Ultra Dense Networks using Rateless Codes

We investigate the problem of delay-efficient and reliable data delivery in ultra-dense networks (UDNs) that constitute macro base stations (MBSs), small base stations (SBSs), and mobile users. Considering a two-hop data delivery system, we propose a partial decode-and-forward (PDF) relaying strategy together with a simple and intuitive amicable encoding scheme for rateless codes to significantly improve user experience in terms of end-to-end delay. Simulation results verify that our amicable encoding scheme is efficient in improving the intermediate performance of rateless codes. It also verifies that our proposed PDF significantly improves the performance of the decode-and-forward (DF) strategy, and that PDF is much more robust against channel degradation. Overall, the proposed strategy and encoding scheme are efficient towards delay-sensitive data delivery in the UDN scenarios.