Type II ARQ schemes with multiple copy decoding for mobile communications

The preference improvement resulting from modifications to the original ARQ scheme proposed by E.J. Weldon (1982) for use in systems with finite-receiver buffers was analyzed in a previous paper. A modification involving the use of parity retransmission is studied. One drawback of using forward error correcting (FEC) codes is that the parity bits result in a degradation in efficiency under good channel conditions: the maximum throughput is limited to the FEC code rate. Two type II ARQ schemes which overcome this problem are studied. Lower bounds on the throughputs of the two schemes are obtained. The throughput of the type II ARQ scheme is no longer limited by one-half the rate of the FEC code used. Under good channel conditions, the throughput with the type II ARQ scheme is equivalent to not using FEC; as the channel degrades, it approaches the throughput with a rate one-half FEC code