Enhanced voice over 5G transmission with unequal error protection and generative adversarial networks

Abstract

SummaryVoice services have progressed significantly since the launch of mobile phones and have evolved from analog technology to digital ones. Since the launch of 5G, voice over 5G (Vo5G) will slowly take over legacy mobile technologies to provide better voice services. Nevertheless, interruptions and noise will continue to affect speech communication over wireless networks, ensuing in a reduced Quality of Service (QoS). Three enhanced transmission schemes for Vo5G are proposed. The first proposal benefits from the difference in weight of the bits of internet Low Bitrate Code (iLBC) coded packets to offer them diverse degrees of protection i.e. Unequal Error Protection (UEP). UEP enhances the reception quality by allowing the more significant bits to be decoded with greater reliability during 5G transmission. The second and third schemes substitute the usual Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) constellation with a Statistical QAM (SQAM) one. The second scheme arranges the significant bits on the SQAM constellation and the remaining bits onto the conventional QAM arrangement. For the third scheme, all the bits are arranged on the SQAM constellation. Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) were incorporated into the third scheme as the third scheme provided better gains over the first and second schemes. GAN was used to synthesize and enhance parts of the speech file that were lost during transmission over the 5G channel resulting in a gain in Segmented Signal to Noise Ratio (SSNR). The addition of GAN boosted the gain obtained by the third scheme by 1.45 dB with 16‐QAM at a code rate of 1/3.