Multilevel Code Designs for mmWave Networks.

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) networks support a large variety of applications, particularly delay-sensitive applications by providing high-speed communication. A well-recognized challenge in mmWave communications is that mmWave links are susceptible to blockage and thus, communication may get disrupted. In this paper, we design and evaluate low-complexity proactive transmission mechanisms for mmWave networks that are resilient to such disruptions. Our mechanisms build on the multipath environment and on the existence of accurate models for link blockage probabilities in mmWave networks. We propose the deployment of symmetric multilevel codes across paths to achieve an attractive trade-off between the average information rate and a graceful performance degradation. Our numerical evaluations show that our proposed coding schemes indeed provide a graceful performance degradation compared to alternative schemes (such as erasure correcting codes), while significantly reducing the code complexity compared to traditional multilevel code designs.