Synchronization recovery and state model reduction for soft decoding of variable length codes

Variable length codes exhibit de-synchronization problems when transmitted over noisy channels. Trellis decoding techniques based on Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) estimators are often used to minimize the error rate on the estimated sequence. If the number of symbols and/or bits transmitted are known by the decoder, termination constraints can be incorporated in the decoding process. All the paths in the trellis which do not lead to a valid sequence length are suppressed. This paper presents an analytic method to assess the expected error resilience of a VLC when trellis decoding with a sequence length constraint is used. The approach is based on the computation, for a given code, of the amount of information brought by the constraint. It is then shown that this quantity as well as the probability that the VLC decoder does not re-synchronize in a strict sense, are not significantly altered by appropriate trellis states aggregation. This proves that the performance obtained by running a length-constrained Viterbi decoder on aggregated state models approaches the one obtained with the bit/symbol trellis, with a significantly reduced complexity. It is then shown that the complexity can be further decreased by projecting the state model on two state models of reduced size

An investigation of error correcting techniques for OMV data

Papers on the following topics are presented: considerations of testing the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) system with CLASS; OMV CLASS test results (first go around); equivalent system gain available from R-S encoding versus a desire to lower the power amplifier from 25 watts to 20 watts for OMV; command word acceptance/rejection rates for OMV; a memo concerning energy-to-noise ratio for the Viterbi-BSC Channel and the impact of Manchester coding loss; and an investigation of error correcting techniques for OMV and Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF)

A unary error correction code for the near-capacity joint source and channel coding of symbol values from an infinite set

A novel Joint Source and Channel Code (JSCC) is proposed, which we refer to as the Unary Error Correction (UEC) code. Unlike existing JSCCs, our UEC facilitates the practical encoding of symbol values that are selected from a set having an infinite cardinality. Conventionally, these symbols are conveyed using Separate Source and Channel Codes (SSCCs), but we demonstrate that the residual redundancy that is retained following source coding results in a capacity loss, which is found to have a value of 1.11 dB in a particular practical scenario. By contrast, the proposed UEC code can eliminate this capacity loss, or reduce it to an infinitesimally small value. Furthermore, the UEC code has only a moderate complexity, facilitating its employment in practical low-complexity applications

Joint source-channel coding/decoding of 3D-ESCOT bitstreams

International audienceJoint source-channel decoding (JSCD) exploits residual redundancy in compressed bitstreams to improve the robustness to transmission errors of multimedia coding schemes. This paper proposes an architecture to introduce some additional side information in compressed streams to help JSCD. This architecture exploits a reference decoder already present or introduced at the encoder side. An application to the robust decoding of 3D-ESCOT encoded bitstreams generated within the Vidwav video coder is presented. The layered bitstream generated by this encoder allows SNR scalability, and moreover, when processed by a JSCD, provides increased robustness to transmission errors compared with a single layered bitstream

UNDERWATER COMMUNICATIONS WITH ACOUSTIC STEGANOGRAPHY: RECOVERY ANALYSIS AND MODELING

In the modern warfare environment, communication is a cornerstone of combat competence. However, the increasing threat of communications-denied environments highlights the need for communications systems with low probability of intercept and detection. This is doubly true in the subsurface environment, where communications and sonar systems can reveal the tactical location of platforms and capabilities, subverting their covert mission set. A steganographic communication scheme that leverages existing technologies and unexpected data carriers is a feasible means of increasing assurance of communications, even in denied environments. This research works toward a covert communication system by determining and comparing novel symbol recovery schemes to extract data from a signal transmitted under a steganographic technique and interfered with by a simulated underwater acoustic channel. We apply techniques for reliably extracting imperceptible information from unremarkable acoustic events robust to the variability of the hostile operating environment. The system is evaluated based on performance metrics, such as transmission rate and bit error rate, and we show that our scheme is sufficient to conduct covert communications through acoustic transmissions, though we do not solve the problems of synchronization or equalization.Lieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Non-iterative joint decoding and signal processing: universal coding approach for channels with memory

A non-iterative receiver is proposed to achieve near capacity performance on intersymbol interference (ISI) channels. There are two main ingredients in the proposed design. i) The use of a novel BCJR-DFE equalizer which produces optimal soft estimates of the inputs to the ISI channel given all the observations from the channel and L past symbols exactly, where L is the memory of the ISI channel. ii) The use of an encoder structure that ensures that L past symbols can be used in the DFE in an error free manner through the use of a capacity achieving code for a memoryless channel. Computational complexity of the proposed receiver structure is less than that of one iteration of the turbo receiver. We also provide the proof showing that the proposed receiver achieves the i.i.d. capacity of any constrained input ISI channel. This DFE-based receiver has several advantages over an iterative (turbo) receiver, such as low complexity, the fact that codes that are optimized for memoryless channels can be used with channels with memory, and finally that the channel does not need to be known at the transmitter. The proposed coding scheme is universal in the sense that a single code of rate r; optimized for a memoryless channel, provides small error probability uniformly across all AWGN-ISI channels of i.i.d. capacity less than r: This general principle of a proposed non-iterative receiver also applies to other signal processing functions, such as timing recovery, pattern-dependent noise whiten ing, joint demodulation and decoding etc. This makes the proposed encoder and receiver structure a viable alternative to iterative signal processing. The results show significant complexity reduction and performance gain for the case of timing recovery and patter-dependent noise whitening for magnetic recording channels

Space Station communications and tracking systems modeling and RF link simulation

In this final report, the effort spent on Space Station Communications and Tracking System Modeling and RF Link Simulation is described in detail. The effort is mainly divided into three parts: frequency division multiple access (FDMA) system simulation modeling and software implementation; a study on design and evaluation of a functional computerized RF link simulation/analysis system for Space Station; and a study on design and evaluation of simulation system architecture. This report documents the results of these studies. In addition, a separate User's Manual on Space Communications Simulation System (SCSS) (Version 1) documents the software developed for the Space Station FDMA communications system simulation. The final report, SCSS user's manual, and the software located in the NASA JSC system analysis division's VAX 750 computer together serve as the deliverables from LinCom for this project effort

Simplification Resilient LDPC-Coded Sparse-QIM Watermarking for 3D-Meshes

We propose a blind watermarking scheme for 3-D meshes which combines sparse quantization index modulation (QIM) with deletion correction codes. The QIM operates on the vertices in rough concave regions of the surface thus ensuring impeccability, while the deletion correction code recovers the data hidden in the vertices which is removed by mesh optimization and/or simplification. The proposed scheme offers two orders of magnitude better performance in terms of recovered watermark bit error rate compared to the existing schemes of similar payloads and fidelity constraints.Comment: Submitted, revised and Copyright transfered to IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, October 9th 201