An Enhanced Covering Lemma for Multiterminal Source Coding

An enhanced covering lemma for a Markov chain is proved in this paper, and then the distributed source coding problem of correlated general sources with one average distortion criterion under fixed-length coding is investigated. Based on the enhanced lemma, a sufficient and necessary condition for determining the achievability of rate-distortion triples is given.Comment: To appear in Proc. 2006 IEEE Information Theory Workshop, October 22-26, 2006, Chengdu, China. (5 pages

Integer-forcing in multiterminal coding: uplink-downlink duality and source-channel duality

Interference is considered to be a major obstacle to wireless communication. Popular approaches, such as the zero-forcing receiver in MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) multiple-access channel (MAC) and zero-forcing (ZF) beamforming in MIMO broadcast channel (BC), eliminate the interference first and decode each codeword separately using a conventional single-user decoder. Recently, a transceiver architecture called integer-forcing (IF) has been proposed in the context of the MIMO Gaussian multiple-access channel to exploit integer-linear combinations of the codewords. Instead of treating other codewords as interference, the integer-forcing approach decodes linear combinations of the codewords from different users and solves for desired codewords. Integer-forcing can closely approach the performance of the optimal joint maximum likelihood decoder. An advanced version called successive integer-forcing can achieve the sum capacity of the MIMO MAC channel. Several extensions of integer-forcing have been developed in various scenarios, such as integer-forcing for the Gaussian MIMO broadcast channel, integer-forcing for Gaussian distributed source coding and integer-forcing interference alignment for the Gaussian interference channel. This dissertation demonstrates duality relationships for integer-forcing among three different channel models. We explore in detail two distinct duality types in this thesis: uplink-downlink duality and source-channel duality. Uplink-downlink duality is established for integer-forcing between the Gaussian MIMO multiple-access channel and its dual Gaussian MIMO broadcast channel. We show that under a total power constraint, integer-forcing can achieve the same sum rate in both cases. We further develop a dirty-paper integer-forcing scheme for the Gaussian MIMO BC and show an uplink-downlink duality with successive integer-forcing for the Gaussian MIMO MAC. The source-channel duality is established for integer-forcing between the Gaussian MIMO multiple-access channel and its dual Gaussian distributed source coding problem. We extend previous results for integer-forcing source coding to allow for successive cancellation. For integer-forcing without successive cancellation in both channel coding and source coding, we show the rates in two scenarios lie within a constant gap of one another. We further show that there exists a successive cancellation scheme such that both integer-forcing channel coding and integer-forcing source coding achieve the same rate tuple

Structural Results for Coding Over Communication Networks

We study the structure of optimality achieving codes in network communications. The thesis consists of two parts: in the first part, we investigate the role of algebraic structure in the performance of communication strategies. In chapter two, we provide a linear coding scheme for the multiple-descriptions source coding problem which improves upon the performance of the best known unstructured coding scheme. In chapter three, we propose a new method for lattice-based codebook generation. The new method leads to a simplification in the analysis of the performance of lattice codes in continuous-alphabet communication. In chapter four, we show that although linear codes are necessary to achieve optimality in certain problems, loosening the closure restriction in the codebook leads to gains in other network communication settings. We introduce a new class of structured codes called quasi-linear codes (QLC). These codes cover the whole spectrum between unstructured codes and linear codes. We develop coding strategies in the interference channel and the multiple-descriptions problems using QLCs which outperform the previous schemes. In the second part, which includes the last two chapters, we consider a different structural restriction on codes used in network communication. Namely, we limit the `effective length' of these codes. First, we consider an arbitrary pair of Boolean functions which operate on two sequences of correlated random variables. We derive a new upper-bound on the correlation between the outputs of these functions. The upper-bound is presented as a function of the `dependency spectrum' of the corresponding Boolean functions. Next, we investigate binary block-codes (BBC). A BBC is defined as a vector of Boolean functions. We consider BBCs which are generated randomly, and using single-letter distributions. We characterize the vector of dependency spectrums of these BBCs. This gives an upper-bound on the correlation between the outputs of two distributed BBCs. Finally, the upper-bound is used to show that the large blocklength single-letter coding schemes in the literature are sub-optimal in various multiterminal communication settings.PHDElectrical Engineering: SystemsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137059/1/fshirani_1.pd

Lecture Notes on Network Information Theory

These lecture notes have been converted to a book titled Network Information Theory published recently by Cambridge University Press. This book provides a significantly expanded exposition of the material in the lecture notes as well as problems and bibliographic notes at the end of each chapter. The authors are currently preparing a set of slides based on the book that will be posted in the second half of 2012. More information about the book can be found at http://www.cambridge.org/9781107008731/. The previous (and obsolete) version of the lecture notes can be found at http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.3404v4/

Distributed secrecy for information theoretic sensor network models

This dissertation presents a novel problem inspired by the characteristics of sensor networks. The basic setup through-out the dissertation is that a set of sensor nodes encipher their data without collaboration and without any prior shared secret materials. The challenge is dealt by an eavesdropper who intercepts a subset of the enciphered data and wishes to gain knowledge of the uncoded data. This problem is challenging and novel given that the eavesdropper is assumed to know everything, including secret cryptographic keys used by both the encoders and decoders. We study the above problem using information theoretic models as a necessary first step towards an understanding of the characteristics of this system problem. This dissertation contains four parts. The first part deals with noiseless channels, and the goal is for sensor nodes to both source code and encipher their data. We derive inner and outer regions of the capacity region (i.e the set of all source coding and equivocation rates) for this problem under general distortion constraints. The main conclusion in this part is that unconditional secrecy is unachievable unless the distortion is maximal, rendering the data useless. In the second part we thus provide a practical coding scheme based on distributed source coding using syndromes (DISCUS) that provides secrecy beyond the equivocation measure, i.e. secrecy on each symbol in the message. The third part deals with discrete memoryless channels, and the goal is for sensor nodes to both channel code and encipher their data. We derive inner and outer regions to the secrecy capacity region, i.e. the set of all channel coding rates that achieve (weak) unconditional secrecy. The main conclusion in this part is that interference allows (weak) unconditional secrecy to be achieved in contrast with the first part of this dissertation. The fourth part deals with wireless channels with fading and additive Gaussian noise. We derive a general outer region and an inner region based on an equal SNR assumption, and show that the two are partially tight when the maximum available user powers are admissible