Performance analysis of concatenated Reed–Solomon and next generation polar codes for 6G communication systems

Burst errors are common in high data rate communication, such as in the Six-Generation (6G) communication system, which degrades its ultra-high reliability requirements. In this study, we have demonstrated how Reed-Solomon codes can be combined with Fifth-Generation (5G) new Radio polar codes to correct burst errors for the 6G system. We have used serial and hybrid concatenating methods. Sequential iterative hard decision decoding methods and Soft Input Soft Output (SISO) with Generalized Minimum Distance (GMD) decoding for the RS decoder have been used. The bit error rate (BER) and Block Error Rate (BLER) performance of the concatenated as well as the 5G polar codes have been evaluated. In the presence of burst errors, the concatenated code gives a BER of 5.49 × 10⁻⁸ at − 5.78 dB, while the 5G NR polar code gives 3.9 × 10⁻⁸ BER at − 2.79 dB SNR, which is 3 dB SNR gain. The proposed system also performed well in power domain NOMA in which inter-user interference exists. In addition, with SISO GMD and Deep Neural Network-based GMD decoding, the concatenated system showed superior results to the 5G polar codes. A BER of 3.7× 10⁻⁸ at − 6.78 dB is observed compared to the non-Neural Networks SISO GMD decoder. RS-NR-Polar can be used to meet the high-reliability requirements of 6G communication systems.