Network vector quantization

We present an algorithm for designing locally optimal vector quantizers for general networks. We discuss the algorithm's implementation and compare the performance of the resulting "network vector quantizers" to traditional vector quantizers (VQs) and to rate-distortion (R-D) bounds where available. While some special cases of network codes (e.g., multiresolution (MR) and multiple description (MD) codes) have been studied in the literature, we here present a unifying approach that both includes these existing solutions as special cases and provides solutions to previously unsolved examples

Joint Source Channel Coding in Broadcast and Relay Channels: A Non-Asymptotic End-to-End Distortion Approach

The paradigm of separate source-channel coding is inspired by Shannon's separation result, which implies the asymptotic optimality of designing source and channel coding independently from each other. The result exploits the fact that channel error probabilities can be made arbitrarily small, as long as the block length of the channel code can be made arbitrarily large. However, this is not possible in practice, where the block length is either fixed or restricted to a range of finite values. As a result, the optimality of source and channel coding separation becomes unknown, leading researchers to consider joint source-channel coding (JSCC) to further improve the performance of practical systems that must operate in the finite block length regime. With this motivation, this thesis investigates the application of JSCC principles for multimedia communications over point-to-point, broadcast, and relay channels. All analyses are conducted from the perspective of end-to-end distortion (EED) for results that are applicable to channel codes with finite block lengths in pursuing insights into practical design. The thesis first revisits the fundamental open problem of the separation of source and channel coding in the finite block length regime. Derived formulations and numerical analyses for a source-channel coding system reveal many scenarios where the EED reduction is positive when pairing the channel-optimized source quantizer (COSQ) with an optimal channel code, hence establishing the invalidity of the separation theorem in the finite block length regime. With this, further improvements to JSCC systems are considered by augmenting error detection codes with the COSQ. Closed-form EED expressions for such system are derived, from which necessary optimality conditions are identified and used in proposed algorithms for system design. Results for both the point-to-point and broadcast channels demonstrate significant reductions to the EED without sacrificing bandwidth when considering a tradeoff between quantization and error detection coding rates. Lastly, the JSCC system is considered under relay channels, for which a computable measure of the EED is derived for any relay channel conditions with nonzero channel error probabilities. To emphasize the importance of analyzing JSCC systems under finite block lengths, the large sub-optimality in performance is demonstrated when solving the power allocation configuration problem according to capacity-based formulations that disregard channel errors, as opposed to those based on the EED. Although this thesis only considers one JSCC setup of many, it is concluded that consideration of JSCC systems from a non-asymptotic perspective not only is more meaningful, but also reveals more relevant insight into practical system design. This thesis accomplishes such by maintaining the EED as a measure of system performance in each of the considered point-to-point, broadcast, and relay cases

Optimal Power Allocation for a Successive Refinable Source with Multiple Descriptions over a Fading Relay Channel Using Broadcast/Multicast Strategies

In a wireless fading relay system with multicast/broadcast transmission, one of the most crucial challenges is the optimization of a transmission rate under multiuser channel diversity. Previously reported solutions for mitigating the vicious effect due to multi-user channel diversity have been mainly based on superposition coded multicast, where an optimal power allocation to each layer of modulated signals is determined. Many previous studies investigated a harmonic interplay between the successively re nable (SR) content source and a layered modulation via superposition coding (SPC) over the multicast/broadcast channels. By jointly considering the successive re nement characteristic at the source and the dependency of the layered modulation at the channel, a graceful fexibility can be achieved on a group of users with di erent channel realizations. Here most of the receivers are supposed to obtain the base quality layer information modulated in a lower rate, while the receivers with better channel realizations will obtain more information by re ning the base quality layer information using the enhancement quality layer information. In particular, the optimal power allocation for a SR source over a fading relay channel using broadcast/multicast strategy can be determined such that the minimum distortion of total received information is produced. However, a quality layer of data in a successively refined source may not be decodable if there is any loss of channel codewords, even if the corresponding longterm channel realization is su cient for decoding. To overcome this problem, one of the previous studies introduced a framework of coded video multicast, where multiple description coding (MDC) is applied to an SR content source and is further mapped into a layered modulation via SPC at the channel. Up till now, there has not been a rigorous proof provided on the bene t of manipulating the two coding techniques, (i.e. MDC and SPC), nor has any systematic optimization approach been developed for quantifying the parameter selection. Cooperative relaying in wireless networks has recently received much attention. Because the received signal can be severely degraded due to fading in wireless communications, time, frequency and spatial diversity techniques are introduced to overcome fading. Spatial diversity is typically envisioned as having multiple transmit and/or receive antennas. Cooperation can be used here to provide higher rates and results in a more robust system. Recently proposed cooperation schemes, which take into account the practical constraint that the relay cannot transmit and receive at the same time, include amplify-forward(AF), decode-forward(DF), and compress-forward(CF). In this study, in a fading relay scenario, a proposed framework is investigated to tackle the task of layered power allocation, where an in-depth study is conducted on achieving an optimal power allocation in SPC, such that the information distortion perceived at the users can be minimized. This thesis provides a comprehensive formulation on the information distortion at the receivers and a suite of solution approaches for the developed optimization problem by jointly considering MDC and SPC parameter selection over the fading relay channel

Multidimensional Wavelets and Computer Vision

This report deals with the construction and the mathematical analysis of multidimensional nonseparable wavelets and their efficient application in computer vision. In the first part, the fundamental principles and ideas of multidimensional wavelet filter design such as the question for the existence of good scaling matrices and sensible design criteria are presented and extended in various directions. Afterwards, the analytical properties of these wavelets are investigated in some detail. It will turn out that they are especially well-suited to represent (discretized) data as well as large classes of operators in a sparse form - a property that directly yields efficient numerical algorithms. The final part of this work is dedicated to the application of the developed methods to the typical computer vision problems of nonlinear image regularization and the computation of optical flow in image sequences. It is demonstrated how the wavelet framework leads to stable and reliable results for these problems of generally ill-posed nature. Furthermore, all the algorithms are of order O(n) leading to fast processing

Exposing a waveform interface to the wireless channel for scalable video broadcast

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-167).Video broadcast and mobile video challenge the conventional wireless design. In broadcast and mobile scenarios the bit-rate supported by the channel differs across receivers and varies quickly over time. The conventional design however forces the source to pick a single bit-rate and degrades sharply when the channel cannot support it. This thesis presents SoftCast, a clean-slate design for wireless video where the source transmits one video stream that each receiver decodes to a video quality commensurate with its specific instantaneous channel quality. To do so, SoftCast ensures the samples of the digital video signal transmitted on the channel are linearly related to the pixels' luminance. Thus, when channel noise perturbs the transmitted signal samples, the perturbation naturally translates into approximation in the original video pixels. Hence, a receiver with a good channel (low noise) obtains a high fidelity video, and a receiver with a bad channel (high noise) obtains a low fidelity video. SoftCast's linear design in essence resembles the traditional analog approach to communication, which was abandoned in most major communication systems, as it does not enjoy the theoretical opimality of the digital separate design in point-topoint channels nor its effectiveness at compressing the source data. In this thesis, I show that in combination with decorrelating transforms common to modern digital video compression, the analog approach can achieve performance competitive with the prevalent digital design for a wide variety of practical point-to-point scenarios, and outperforms it in the broadcast and mobile scenarios. Since the conventional bit-pipe interface of the wireless physical layer (PHY) forces the separation of source and channel coding, to realize SoftCast, architectural changes to the wireless PHY are necessary. This thesis discusses the design of RawPHY, a reorganization of the PHY which exposes a waveform interface to the channel while shielding the designers of the higher layers from much of the perplexity of the wireless channel. I implement SoftCast and RawPHY using the GNURadio software and the USRP platform. Results from a 20-node testbed show that SoftCast improves the average video quality (i.e., PSNR) across diverse broadcast receivers in our testbed by up to 5.5 dB in comparison to conventional single- or multi-layer video. Even for a single receiver, it eliminates video glitches caused by mobility and increases robustness to packet loss by an order of magnitude.by Szymon Kazimierz Jakubczak.Ph.D

Dynamic information and constraints in source and channel coding

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2004.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-251).This thesis explore dynamics in source coding and channel coding. We begin by introducing the idea of distortion side information, which does not directly depend on the source but instead affects the distortion measure. Such distortion side information is not only useful at the encoder but under certain conditions knowing it at the encoder is optimal and knowing it at the decoder is useless. Thus distortion side information is a natural complement to Wyner-Ziv side information and may be useful in exploiting properties of the human perceptual system as well as in sensor or control applications. In addition to developing the theoretical limits of source coding with distortion side information, we also construct practical quantizers based on lattices and codes on graphs. Our use of codes on graphs is also of independent interest since it highlights some issues in translating the success of turbo and LDPC codes into the realm of source coding. Finally, to explore the dynamics of side information correlated with the source, we consider fixed lag side information at the decoder. We focus on the special case of perfect side information with unit lag corresponding to source coding with feedforward (the dual of channel coding with feedback).(cont.) Using duality, we develop a linear complexity algorithm which exploits the feedforward information to achieve the rate-distortion bound. The second part of the thesis focuses on channel dynamics in communication by introducing a new system model to study delay in streaming applications. We first consider an adversarial channel model where at any time the channel may suffer a burst of degraded performance (e.g., due to signal fading, interference, or congestion) and prove a coding theorem for the minimum decoding delay required to recover from such a burst. Our coding theorem illustrates the relationship between the structure of a code, the dynamics of the channel, and the resulting decoding delay. We also consider more general channel dynamics. Specifically, we prove a coding theorem establishing that, for certain collections of channel ensembles, delay-universal codes exist that simultaneously achieve the best delay for any channel in the collection. Practical constructions with low encoding and decoding complexity are described for both cases.(cont.) Finally, we also consider architectures consisting of both source and channel coding which deal with channel dynamics by spreading information over space, frequency, multiple antennas, or alternate transmission paths in a network to avoid coding delays. Specifically, we explore whether the inherent diversity in such parallel channels should be exploited at the application layer via multiple description source coding, at the physical layer via parallel channel coding, or through some combination of joint source-channel coding. For on-off channel models application layer diversity architectures achieve better performance while for channels with a continuous range of reception quality (e.g., additive Gaussian noise channels with Rayleigh fading), the reverse is true. Joint source-channel coding achieves the best of both by performing as well as application layer diversity for on-off channels and as well as physical layer diversity for continuous channels.by Emin Martinian.Ph.D