Algebraic lattice codes for linear fading channels

In the decades following Shannon’s work, the quest to design codes for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel led to the development of a rich theory, revealing a number of beautiful connections between information theory and geometry of numbers. One of the most striking examples is the connection between classical lattice sphere packing and the capacity of the AWGN channel. The main result states that any family of lattice codes with linearly growing Hermite invariant achieves a constant gap to capacity. These classical results and many more can be found in the comprehensive book by Conway and Sloane [5]…