TYPE-II HYBRID-ARQ PROTOCOLS USING PUNCTURED MDS CODES

MDS codes possess several properties that make them an ideal choice fo r type-II hybrid-ARQ protocols. These properties include ''strong sepa rability'' ''strong invertibility'' and excellent reliability performa nce when used for simultaneous error detection and correction. In this paper these properties are shown to lead to a natural definition of a n MDS type-II hybrid-ARQ protocol. An (n, k) MDS code is decomposed in to a pair of (n/2, k) punctured MDS codes. The original code and the t wo derivative codes are used individually in type-I hybrid-ARQ protoco ls. These three type-I protocols combine to form a single type-II prot ocol. The performance of this system is analyzed in detail, with parti cular attention paid to the definition of an effective channel model f or code words that are known to have caused the generation of retransm ission requests.