6G: A Welcome Chance to Unify Channel Coding?

Channel coding is one of the workhorses of the physical layer, enabling reliable and energy-efficient data transmission. In this article, we highlight the core innovations in channel coding that have been commercialized in wireless mobile communication standards over the past decades, in the context of current and anticipated future requirements. We point out major challenges in channel coding foreseen for sixth generation networks, with the concept of “unified coding” being a possible enabler. We review promising new solutions to these challenges, such as automorphism ensemble decoding and “code-agnostic” decoding.