Systems and methods for harq retransmission using an outer code

A network device comprising:

• a transmitter and an encoder;
• the encoder to:
• receive bits partitioned into m information blocks, and encode each information block of the m information blocks to obtain a respective encoded code block;
• the transmitter to transmit the m encoded code blocks;
• the encoder further to compute N parity blocks from the m information blocks by, for each one of the N parity blocks, performing an XOR operation on all of the m information blocks or cyclic shifts thereof, wherein 1<N≤m;
• the encoder further to encode each parity block of the N parity blocks to obtain N encoded parity code blocks;
• and
• the transmitter further to transmit the N encoded parity code blocks.

A method performed by a network device, the method comprising:

• receiving m encoded code blocks, each one of the m encoded code blocks corresponding to a respective information block that has been encoded;
• decoding the m encoded code blocks;
• in response to decoding failing for N≤m of the encoded code blocks:
• transmitting feedback indicating a quantity N of failed code blocks, without identifying which ones of the m code blocks were incorrectly decoded;
• receiving N encoded parity blocks;
• decoding the N encoded parity blocks to obtain N parity blocks;
• decoding the N incorrectly decoded information blocks using the N parity blocks.

A network device comprising:

• a transmitter, a receiver, and a decoder;
• the receiver to receive m encoded blocks, each one of the m encoded blocks corresponding to a respective information block that has been encoded;
• the decoder to decode the m encoded blocks;
• in response to decoding failing for N≤m of the encoded blocks:
• the transmitter to transmit feedback indicating N information blocks have been incorrectly decoded;
• the receiver to receive N encoded parity blocks;
• the decoder to decode the N encoded parity blocks to obtain N parity blocks;
• the decoder further to decode the N incorrectly decoded information blocks using the N parity blocks.