Block-fading channels at finite blocklength

This tutorial paper deals with the problem of characterizing the maximal achievable rate R(n; ϵ )at a given blocklength n and error probability ϵ over block-fading channels. We review recent results that establish tight bounds on R(n; ϵ )and characterize its asymptotic behavior. Comparison between the theoretical results and the data rates achievable with the coding scheme used in LTE-Advanced are reported