8 research outputs found
How to Achieve the Capacity of Asymmetric Channels
We survey coding techniques that enable reliable transmission at rates that
approach the capacity of an arbitrary discrete memoryless channel. In
particular, we take the point of view of modern coding theory and discuss how
recent advances in coding for symmetric channels help provide more efficient
solutions for the asymmetric case. We consider, in more detail, three basic
coding paradigms.
The first one is Gallager's scheme that consists of concatenating a linear
code with a non-linear mapping so that the input distribution can be
appropriately shaped. We explicitly show that both polar codes and spatially
coupled codes can be employed in this scenario. Furthermore, we derive a
scaling law between the gap to capacity, the cardinality of the input and
output alphabets, and the required size of the mapper.
The second one is an integrated scheme in which the code is used both for
source coding, in order to create codewords distributed according to the
capacity-achieving input distribution, and for channel coding, in order to
provide error protection. Such a technique has been recently introduced by
Honda and Yamamoto in the context of polar codes, and we show how to apply it
also to the design of sparse graph codes.
The third paradigm is based on an idea of B\"ocherer and Mathar, and
separates the two tasks of source coding and channel coding by a chaining
construction that binds together several codewords. We present conditions for
the source code and the channel code, and we describe how to combine any source
code with any channel code that fulfill those conditions, in order to provide
capacity-achieving schemes for asymmetric channels. In particular, we show that
polar codes, spatially coupled codes, and homophonic codes are suitable as
basic building blocks of the proposed coding strategy.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figures, presented in part at Allerton'14 and published
in IEEE Trans. Inform. Theor
Capacity-Achieving Coding Mechanisms: Spatial Coupling and Group Symmetries
The broad theme of this work is in constructing optimal transmission mechanisms for a wide variety of communication systems. In particular, this dissertation provides a proof of threshold saturation for spatially-coupled codes, low-complexity capacity-achieving coding schemes for side-information problems, a proof that Reed-Muller and primitive narrow-sense BCH codes achieve capacity on erasure channels, and a mathematical framework to design delay sensitive communication systems.
Spatially-coupled codes are a class of codes on graphs that are shown to achieve capacity universally over binary symmetric memoryless channels (BMS) under belief-propagation decoder. The underlying phenomenon behind spatial coupling, known as âthreshold saturation via spatial couplingâ, turns out to be general and this technique has been applied to a wide variety of systems. In this work, a proof of the threshold saturation phenomenon is provided for irregular low-density parity-check (LDPC) and low-density generator-matrix (LDGM) ensembles on BMS channels. This proof is far simpler than published alternative proofs and it remains as the only technique to handle irregular and LDGM codes. Also, low-complexity capacity-achieving codes are constructed for three coding problems via spatial coupling: 1) rate distortion with side-information, 2) channel coding with side-information, and 3) write-once memory system. All these schemes are based on spatially coupling compound LDGM/LDPC ensembles.
Reed-Muller and Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquengham (BCH) are well-known algebraic codes introduced more than 50 years ago. While these codes are studied extensively in the literature it wasnât known whether these codes achieve capacity. This work introduces a technique to show that Reed-Muller and primitive narrow-sense BCH codes achieve capacity on erasure channels under maximum a posteriori (MAP) decoding. Instead of relying on the weight enumerators or other precise details of these codes, this technique requires that these codes have highly symmetric permutation groups. In fact, any sequence of linear codes with increasing blocklengths whose rates converge to a number between 0 and 1, and whose permutation groups are doubly transitive achieve capacity on erasure channels under bit-MAP decoding. This pro-vides a rare example in information theory where symmetry alone is suïŹcient to achieve capacity.
While the channel capacity provides a useful benchmark for practical design, communication systems of the day also demand small latency and other link layer metrics. Such delay sensitive communication systems are studied in this work, where a mathematical framework is developed to provide insights into the optimal design of these systems
Finite-Length Scaling Laws for Spatially-Coupled LDPC Codes
This thesis concerns predicting the finite-length error-correcting performance of spatially-coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) code ensembles over the binary erasure channel. SC-LDPC codes are a very powerful class of codes; their use in practical communication systems, however, requires the system designer to specify a considerable number of code and decoder parameters, all of which affect both the codeâs error-correcting capability and the systemâs memory, energy, and latency requirements. Navigating the space of the associated trade-offs is challenging. The aim of the finite-length scaling laws proposed in this thesis is to facilitate code and decoder parameter optimization by providing a way to predict the codeâs error-rate performance without resorting to Monte-Carlo simulations for each combination of code/decoder and channel parameters.First, we tackle the problem of predicting the frame, bit, and block error rate of SC-LDPC code ensembles over the binary erasure channel under both belief propagation (BP) decoding and sliding window decoding when the maximum number of decoding iterations is unlimited. The scaling laws we develop provide very accurate predictions of the error rates.Second, we derive a scaling law to accurately predict the bit and block error rate of SC-LDPC code ensembles with doping, a technique relevant for streaming applications for limiting the inherent rate loss of SC-LDPC codes. We then use the derived scaling law for code parameter optimization and show that doping can offer a way to achieve better transmission rates for the same target bit error rate than is possible without doping.Last, we address the most challenging (and most practically relevant) case where the maximum number of decoding iterations is limited, both for BP and sliding window decoding. The resulting predictions are again very accurate.Together, these contributions make finite-length SC-LDPC code and decoder parameter optimization via finite-length scaling laws feasible for the design of practical communication systems
From Polar to Reed-Muller Codes:Unified Scaling, Non-standard Channels, and a Proven Conjecture
The year 2016, in which I am writing these words, marks the centenary of Claude Shannon, the father of information theory. In his landmark 1948 paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", Shannon established the largest rate at which reliable communication is possible, and he referred to it as the channel capacity. Since then, researchers have focused on the design of practical coding schemes that could approach such a limit. The road to channel capacity has been almost 70 years long and, after many ideas, occasional detours, and some rediscoveries, it has culminated in the description of low-complexity and provably capacity-achieving coding schemes, namely, polar codes and iterative codes based on sparse graphs. However, next-generation communication systems require an unprecedented performance improvement and the number of transmission settings relevant in applications is rapidly increasing. Hence, although Shannon's limit seems finally close at hand, new challenges are just around the corner. In this thesis, we trace a road that goes from polar to Reed-Muller codes and, by doing so, we investigate three main topics: unified scaling, non-standard channels, and capacity via symmetry. First, we consider unified scaling. A coding scheme is capacity-achieving when, for any rate smaller than capacity, the error probability tends to 0 as the block length becomes increasingly larger. However, the practitioner is often interested in more specific questions such as, "How much do we need to increase the block length in order to halve the gap between rate and capacity?". We focus our analysis on polar codes and develop a unified framework to rigorously analyze the scaling of the main parameters, i.e., block length, rate, error probability, and channel quality. Furthermore, in light of the recent success of a list decoding algorithm for polar codes, we provide scaling results on the performance of list decoders. Next, we deal with non-standard channels. When we say that a coding scheme achieves capacity, we typically consider binary memoryless symmetric channels. However, practical transmission scenarios often involve more complicated settings. For example, the downlink of a cellular system is modeled as a broadcast channel, and the communication on fiber links is inherently asymmetric. We propose provably optimal low-complexity solutions for these settings. In particular, we present a polar coding scheme that achieves the best known rate region for the broadcast channel, and we describe three paradigms to achieve the capacity of asymmetric channels. To do so, we develop general coding "primitives", such as the chaining construction that has already proved to be useful in a variety of communication problems. Finally, we show how to achieve capacity via symmetry. In the early days of coding theory, a popular paradigm consisted in exploiting the structure of algebraic codes to devise practical decoding algorithms. However, proving the optimality of such coding schemes remained an elusive goal. In particular, the conjecture that Reed-Muller codes achieve capacity dates back to the 1960s. We solve this open problem by showing that Reed-Muller codes and, in general, codes with sufficient symmetry are capacity-achieving over erasure channels under optimal MAP decoding. As the proof does not rely on the precise structure of the codes, we are able to show that symmetry alone guarantees optimal performance
Concentration of Measure Inequalities in Information Theory, Communications and Coding (Second Edition)
During the last two decades, concentration inequalities have been the subject
of exciting developments in various areas, including convex geometry,
functional analysis, statistical physics, high-dimensional statistics, pure and
applied probability theory, information theory, theoretical computer science,
and learning theory. This monograph focuses on some of the key modern
mathematical tools that are used for the derivation of concentration
inequalities, on their links to information theory, and on their various
applications to communications and coding. In addition to being a survey, this
monograph also includes various new recent results derived by the authors. The
first part of the monograph introduces classical concentration inequalities for
martingales, as well as some recent refinements and extensions. The power and
versatility of the martingale approach is exemplified in the context of codes
defined on graphs and iterative decoding algorithms, as well as codes for
wireless communication. The second part of the monograph introduces the entropy
method, an information-theoretic technique for deriving concentration
inequalities. The basic ingredients of the entropy method are discussed first
in the context of logarithmic Sobolev inequalities, which underlie the
so-called functional approach to concentration of measure, and then from a
complementary information-theoretic viewpoint based on transportation-cost
inequalities and probability in metric spaces. Some representative results on
concentration for dependent random variables are briefly summarized, with
emphasis on their connections to the entropy method. Finally, we discuss
several applications of the entropy method to problems in communications and
coding, including strong converses, empirical distributions of good channel
codes, and an information-theoretic converse for concentration of measure.Comment: Foundations and Trends in Communications and Information Theory, vol.
10, no 1-2, pp. 1-248, 2013. Second edition was published in October 2014.
ISBN to printed book: 978-1-60198-906-
Radio Communications
In the last decades the restless evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) brought to a deep transformation of our habits. The growth of the Internet and the advances in hardware and software implementations modiïŹed our way to communicate and to share information. In this book, an overview of the major issues faced today by researchers in the ïŹeld of radio communications is given through 35 high quality chapters written by specialists working in universities and research centers all over the world. Various aspects will be deeply discussed: channel modeling, beamforming, multiple antennas, cooperative networks, opportunistic scheduling, advanced admission control, handover management, systems performance assessment, routing issues in mobility conditions, localization, web security. Advanced techniques for the radio resource management will be discussed both in single and multiple radio technologies; either in infrastructure, mesh or ad hoc networks