Distributed video coding for wireless video sensor networks: a review of the state-of-the-art architectures

Distributed video coding (DVC) is a relatively new video coding architecture originated from two fundamental theorems namely, Slepian–Wolf and Wyner–Ziv. Recent research developments have made DVC attractive for applications in the emerging domain of wireless video sensor networks (WVSNs). This paper reviews the state-of-the-art DVC architectures with a focus on understanding their opportunities and gaps in addressing the operational requirements and application needs of WVSNs

Modified distribution of correlation noise for improved Wyner-Ziv video coding performance

This research work was partially funded by the Strategic Educational Pathways Scholarship Scheme (STEPS-Malta) and by European Union - European Social Fund (ESF 1.25).Despite theorems predicting that Distributed Video Coding can achieve the same performance as traditional predictive video coding schemes, the coding efficiency of practical architectures is still far from these bounds. This is attributed to the poor Side Information (SI) estimated at the decoder and to the inability of the channel codes to recover the source at the Slepian-Wolf (SW) limits. This paper tackles the latter issue by recovering the SI bit-planes starting from the most unreliable bit of each coefficient. Most of the mismatch in SI is thus accumulated within the first decoded bit-planes, leaving the last bit-planes with very few or no mismatch. Low-Density Parity-Check Accumulate (LDPCA) codes can then benefit from such compact distribution of correlation noise since they offer a smaller percentage error, from the SW bounds, when mismatch is accumulated in few higher entropy bit-planes. Furthermore, with this setup, most of the last bit-planes can be recovered very effectively using just 8-bit or 16-bit Cyclic Redundancy Codes. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can reduce the Wyner-Ziv bit-rates by up to 21% compared to the DISCOVER codec.peer-reviewe

Side Information Generation in Distributed Video Coding

Distributed Video Coding (DVC) coding paradigm is based largely on two theorems of Information Theory and Coding, which are Slepian-wolf theorem and Wyner-Ziv theorem that were introduced in 1973 and 1976 respectively. DVC bypasses the need of performing Motion Compensation (MC) and Motion Estimation (ME) which are largely responsible for the complex encoder in devices. DVC instead relies on exploiting the source statistics, totally/partially, at only the decoder. Wyner-Ziv coding, a particular case of DVC, which is explored in detail in this thesis. In this scenario, two correlated sources are independently encoded, while the encoded streams are decoded jointly at the single decoder exploiting the correlation between them. Although the distributed coding study dates back to 1970’s, but the practical efforts and developments in the field began only last decade. Upcoming applications (like those of video surveillance, mobile camera, wireless sensor networks) can rely on DVC, as they don’t have high computational capabilities and/or high storage capacity. Current coding paradigms, MPEG-x and H.26x standards, predicts the frame by means of Motion Compensation and Motion Estimation which leads to highly complex encoder. Whilst in WZ coding, the correlation between temporally adjacent frames is performed only at the decoder, which results in fairly low complex encoder. The main objective of the current thesis is to investigate for an improved scheme for Side Information (SI) generation in DVC framework. SI frames, available at the decoder are generated through the means of Radial Basis Function Network (RBFN) neural network. Frames are estimated from decoded key frames block-by-block. RBFN network is trained offline using training patterns from different frames collected from standard video sequences

Research and developments of distributed video coding

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The recent developed Distributed Video Coding (DVC) is typically suitable for the applications such as wireless/wired video sensor network, mobile camera etc. where the traditional video coding standard is not feasible due to the constrained computation at the encoder. With DVC, the computational burden is moved from encoder to decoder. The compression efficiency is achieved via joint decoding at the decoder. The practical application of DVC is referred to Wyner-Ziv video coding (WZ) where the side information is available at the decoder to perform joint decoding. This join decoding inevitably causes a very complex decoder. In current WZ video coding issues, many of them emphasise how to improve the system coding performance but neglect the huge complexity caused at the decoder. The complexity of the decoder has direct influence to the system output. The beginning period of this research targets to optimise the decoder in pixel domain WZ video coding (PDWZ), while still achieves similar compression performance. More specifically, four issues are raised to optimise the input block size, the side information generation, the side information refinement process and the feedback channel respectively. The transform domain WZ video coding (TDWZ) has distinct superior performance to the normal PDWZ due to the exploitation in spatial direction during the encoding. However, since there is no motion estimation at the encoder in WZ video coding, the temporal correlation is not exploited at all at the encoder in all current WZ video coding issues. In the middle period of this research, the 3D DCT is adopted in the TDWZ to remove redundancy in both spatial and temporal direction thus to provide even higher coding performance. In the next step of this research, the performance of transform domain Distributed Multiview Video Coding (DMVC) is also investigated. Particularly, three types transform domain DMVC frameworks which are transform domain DMVC using TDWZ based 2D DCT, transform domain DMVC using TDWZ based on 3D DCT and transform domain residual DMVC using TDWZ based on 3D DCT are investigated respectively. One of the important applications of WZ coding principle is error-resilience. There have been several attempts to apply WZ error-resilient coding for current video coding standard e.g. H.264/AVC or MEPG 2. The final stage of this research is the design of WZ error-resilient scheme for wavelet based video codec. To balance the trade-off between error resilience ability and bandwidth consumption, the proposed scheme emphasises the protection of the Region of Interest (ROI) area. The efficiency of bandwidth utilisation is achieved by mutual efforts of WZ coding and sacrificing the quality of unimportant area. In summary, this research work contributed to achieves several advances in WZ video coding. First of all, it is targeting to build an efficient PDWZ with optimised decoder. Secondly, it aims to build an advanced TDWZ based on 3D DCT, which then is applied into multiview video coding to realise advanced transform domain DMVC. Finally, it aims to design an efficient error-resilient scheme for wavelet video codec, with which the trade-off between bandwidth consumption and error-resilience can be better balanced

A Survey of Physical Layer Security Techniques for 5G Wireless Networks and Challenges Ahead

Physical layer security which safeguards data confidentiality based on the information-theoretic approaches has received significant research interest recently. The key idea behind physical layer security is to utilize the intrinsic randomness of the transmission channel to guarantee the security in physical layer. The evolution towards 5G wireless communications poses new challenges for physical layer security research. This paper provides a latest survey of the physical layer security research on various promising 5G technologies, including physical layer security coding, massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, non-orthogonal multiple access, full duplex technology, etc. Technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends of physical layer security in 5G and beyond are discussed.Comment: To appear in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication

Factor Graph Based Detection Schemes for Mobile Terrestrial DVB Systems with Long OFDM Blocks

This PhD dissertation analyzes the performance of second generation digital video broadcasting (DVB) systems in mobile terrestrial environments and proposes an iterative detection algorithm based on factor graphs (FG) to reduce the distortion caused by the time variation of the channel, providing error-free communication in very severe mobile conditions. The research work focuses on mobile scenarios where the intercarrier interference (ICI) is very high: high vehicular speeds when long orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) blocks are used. As a starting point, we provide the theoretical background on the main topics behind the transmission and reception of terrestrial digital television signals in mobile environments, along with a general overview of the main signal processing techniques included in last generation terrestrial DVB systems. The proposed FG-based detector design is then assessed over a simpli ed bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM)-OFDM communication scheme for a wide variety of mobile environments. Extensive simulation results show the e ectiveness of the proposed belief propagation (BP) algorithm over the channels of interest in this research work. Moreover, assuming that low density parity-check (LDPC) codes are decoded by means of FG-based algorithms, a high-order FG is de ned in order to accomplish joint signal detection and decoding into the same FG framework, o ering a fully parallel structure very suitable when long OFDM blocks are employed. Finally, the proposed algorithms are analyzed over the physical layer of DVB-T2 speci cation. Two reception schemes are proposed which exploit the frequency and time-diversity inherent in time-varying channels with the aim of achieving a reasonable trade-o among performance, complexity and latency.Doktoretza tesi honek bigarren belaunaldiko telebista digitalaren eraginkortasuna aztertzen du eskenatoki mugikorrean, eta faktoreen grafoetan oinarritzen den hartzaile iteratibo bat proposatzen du denboran aldakorra den kanalak sortzen duen distortsioa leundu eta seinalea errorerik gabe hartzea ahalbidetzen duena. Proposatutako detektorea BICM-OFDM komunikazio eskema orokor baten gainean ebaluatu da lurreko broadcasting kanalaren baldintzak kontutan hartuz. Simulazio emaitzek algoritmo honen eraginkortasuna frogatzen dute Doppler frekuentzia handietan. Ikerketa lanaren bigarren zatian, faktoreen grafoetan oinarritutako detektorea eskema turbo zabalago baten baitan txertatu da LDPC dekodi katzaile batekin batera. Hartzaile diseinu honen abantaila nagusia da OFDM simbolo luzeetara ondo egokitzen dela. Azkenik, proposatutako algoritmoa DVB-T2 katearen baitan inplementatu da, bi hartzaile eskema proposatu direlarik seinaleak duen dibertsitate tenporal eta frekuentziala probesteko, beti ere eraginkortasunaren, konplexutasunaren eta latentziaren arteko konpromisoa mantenduz.Este trabajo de tesis analiza el rendimiento de la segunda generación de la televisión digital terreste en escenarios móviles y propone un algoritmo iterativo basado en grafos de factores para la detección de la señal y la reducción de la distorsión causada por la variación temporal del canal, permitiendo así recibir la señal libre de errores. El detector basado en grafos de factores propuesto es evaluado sobre un esquema de comunicaciones general BICM-OFDM en condiciones de transmisión propios de canales de difusión terrestres. Los resultados de simulación presentados muestran la e ciencia del algoritmo de detección propuesto en presencia de frecuencias Doppler muy altas. En una segunda parte del trabajo de investigación, el detector propuesto es incorporado a un esquema turbo junto con un decodi cador LDPC, dando lugar a un receptor iterativo que presenta características especialmente apropiadas para su implementación en sistemas OFDM con longitudes de símbolo elevadas. Por último, se analiza la implementación del algoritmo propuesto sobre la cadena de recepción de DVB-T2. Se presentan dos esquemas de recepción que explotan la diversidad temporal y frecuencial presentes en la señal afectada por canales variantes en el tiempo, consiguiendo un compromiso razonable entre rendimiento, complejidad y latencia

On robust and secure wireless communication system design using software-defined radios

This dissertation is composed of three parts: airborne multi input multi output (MIMO) communications, physical layer authentication, and software radio design for DARPA Spectrum Challenge. A common theme for the three distinct problems is the system perspective that we have adopted throughout this dissertation. Instead of considering isolated issues within these problems, we have provided a holistic design approach to the three problems and have implemented all three systems using the GNU Radio/USRP (Universal Software Radio Peripheral) platform. In the first part, we develop a MIMO communication system for airborne platforms. MIMO communication has long been considered to be suitable only for environment that is rich in scatterers. This, unfortunately is not the case for airborne platforms. However, this lack of scattering can be compensated by the large aperture of the airborne MIMO platform; this is corroborated by our careful analysis using real measurement data. Our analysis of the airborne MIMO channels leads to the development of a variable rate MIMO transceiver architecture. This architecture is numerically shown to improve the bit error rate (BER) over conventional transceiver architectures that are developed for rich scattering environments. A software radio based MIMO system is then implemented to demonstrate experimentally the efficacy of the developed architecture. In the second part, we develop a physical layer authentication scheme as a counter measure to primary user emulation attack (PUEA) in cognitive radio (CR) networks. In this attack, a malicious user emulates the signal characteristics of the primary user (PU) when it is silent which prevents unsuspecting secondary user (SU) from utilizing the network. The developed physical layer authentication is based on embedding cryptographic hash signatures, referred to as authentication tags, within PU\u27s signal constellations. The embedding is performed such that the legacy receivers are not affected. We analyze the scheme using the fast fading Rayleigh channel model and present an optimal scheme to embed signals in PU\u27s constellations which minimizes the tag BER. Experimental results are obtained that corroborate our theoretical claims, thereby establish that reliable authentication can be achieved without sacrificing signal quality at the primary receivers. In the final part, we describe in detail our design of software radios developed as part of the DARPA Spectrum Challenge (DSC), a year long competition that started in January 2013 and concluded in March 2014 with the final tournament held in Arlington, VA at the DARPA headquarter. DSC was comprised of two tournaments, competitive and cooperative. In the competitive mode two radio pairs, each composed of a transmitter and a receiver, are pitted against each other to transmit the most amount of data error-free while operating concurrently in the same frequency band. In the cooperative mode, three radio pairs have to share a frequency band in a cooperative manner wherein the goal is to maximize the throughput of all the three pairs. We describe the design of our software radio system that integrates some key technologies crucial in operating in an environment that does not allow user coordination and spectrum pre-planning, including: spectrum sensing, adaptive transmission both in spectrum utilization and transmission rate, opportunistic jamming, and sliding window feedback. The developed radio is robust in the presence of unknown interference and achieves the desired balance between throughput and reliability in an uncoordinated transmission environment