In this paper, we investigate multi-connectivity (MC) schemes in the context of status update systems with short payloads. As a performance metric, we use the age of information (AoI). Due to short payloads, transmission errors must be taken into account. In addition to the well-known schemes of packet duplication, message splitting, and multiplexing, we propose a codeword splitting scheme, where each status update is jointly encoded across multiple channels. We derive closed-form expressions of the average AoI for the different schemes and optimize their corresponding parameters, such as blocklengths, message splits, and the cyclic schedule for the multiplexing scheme. Analytical comparisons and numerical evaluations show that the codeword splitting scheme achieves the lowest average AoI when joint encoding and decoding are possible. In scenarios where joint encoding is not feasible, whether message splitting or multiplexing results in a lower average AoI depends on the specific parameters.

翻译：本文研究了短负载状态更新系统中的多连接方案，采用信息年龄作为性能度量指标。由于负载较短，必须考虑传输错误的影响。除了已知的数据包复制、消息分割和复用方案外，我们提出了一种码字分割方案，其中每个状态更新通过多个信道进行联合编码。我们推导了不同方案的平均信息年龄闭式表达式，并优化了相应参数，如块长度、消息分割方式以及复用方案的循环调度策略。理论比较与数值评估表明，在可实现联合编解码的情况下，码字分割方案能获得最低的平均信息年龄。在无法实现联合编码的场景中，消息分割与复用方案孰优取决于具体参数配置。