No Arabic abstract
We consider the classic joint source-channel coding problem of transmitting a memoryless source over a memoryless channel. The focus of this work is on the long-standing open problem of finding the rate of convergence of the smallest attainable expected distortion to its asymptotic value, as a function of blocklength $n$. Our main result is that in general the convergence rate is not faster than $n^{-1/2}$. In particular, we show that for the problem of transmitting i.i.d uniform bits over a binary symmetric channels with Hamming distortion, the smallest attainable distortion (bit error rate) is at least $Omega(n^{-1/2})$ above the asymptotic value, if the ``bandwidth expansion ratio is above $1$.
An encoder, subject to a rate constraint, wishes to describe a Gaussian source under squared error distortion. The decoder, besides receiving the encoders description, also observes side information consisting of uncompressed source symbol subject to slow fading and noise. The decoder knows the fading realization but the encoder knows only its distribution. The rate-distortion function that simultaneously satisfies the distortion constraints for all fading states was derived by Heegard and Berger. A layered encoding strategy is considered in which each codeword layer targets a given fading state. When the side-information channel has two discrete fading states, the expected distortion is minimized by optimally allocating the encoding rate between the two codeword layers. For multiple fading states, the minimum expected distortion is formulated as the solution of a convex optimization problem with linearly many variables and constraints. Through a limiting process on the primal and dual solutions, it is shown that single-layer rate allocation is optimal when the fading probability density function is continuous and quasiconcave (e.g., Rayleigh, Rician, Nakagami, and log-normal). In particular, under Rayleigh fading, the optimal single codeword layer targets the least favorable state as if the side information was absent.
A transmitter without channel state information (CSI) wishes to send a delay-limited Gaussian source over a slowly fading channel. The source is coded in superimposed layers, with each layer successively refining the description in the previous one. The receiver decodes the layers that are supported by the channel realization and reconstructs the source up to a distortion. In the limit of a continuum of infinite layers, the optimal power distribution that minimizes the expected distortion is given by the solution to a set of linear differential equations in terms of the density of the fading distribution. In the optimal power distribution, as SNR increases, the allocation over the higher layers remains unchanged; rather the extra power is allocated towards the lower layers. On the other hand, as the bandwidth ratio b (channel uses per source symbol) tends to zero, the power distribution that minimizes expected distortion converges to the power distribution that maximizes expected capacity. While expected distortion can be improved by acquiring CSI at the transmitter (CSIT) or by increasing diversity from the realization of independent fading paths, at high SNR the performance benefit from diversity exceeds that from CSIT, especially when b is large.
This paper starts by considering the minimization of the Renyi divergence subject to a constraint on the total variation distance. Based on the solution of this optimization problem, the exact locus of the points $bigl( D(Q|P_1), D(Q|P_2) bigr)$ is determined when $P_1, P_2, Q$ are arbitrary probability measures which are mutually absolutely continuous, and the total variation distance between $P_1$ and $P_2$ is not below a given value. It is further shown that all the points of this convex region are attained by probability measures which are defined on a binary alphabet. This characterization yields a geometric interpretation of the minimal Chernoff information subject to a constraint on the total variation distance. This paper also derives an exponential upper bound on the performance of binary linear block codes (or code ensembles) under maximum-likelihood decoding. Its derivation relies on the Gallager bounding technique, and it reproduces the Shulman-Feder bound as a special case. The bound is expressed in terms of the Renyi divergence from the normalized distance spectrum of the code (or the average distance spectrum of the ensemble) to the binomially distributed distance spectrum of the capacity-achieving ensemble of random block codes. This exponential bound provides a quantitative measure of the degradation in performance of binary linear block codes (or code ensembles) as a function of the deviation of their distance spectra from the binomial distribution. An efficient use of this bound is considered.
A closed-form expression for a lower bound on the per soliton capacity of the nonlinear optical fibre channel in the presence of (optical) amplifier spontaneous emission (ASE) noise is derived. This bound is based on a non-Gaussian conditional probability density function for the soliton amplitude jitter induced by the ASE noise and is proven to grow logarithmically as the signal-to-noise ratio increases.
A lower bound on the maximum likelihood (ML) decoding error exponent of linear block code ensembles, on the erasure channel, is developed. The lower bound turns to be positive, over an ensemble specific interval of erasure probabilities, when the ensemble weight spectral shape function tends to a negative value as the fractional codeword weight tends to zero. For these ensembles we can therefore lower bound the block-wise ML decoding threshold. Two examples are presented, namely, linear random parity-check codes and fixed-rate Raptor codes with linear random precoders. While for the former a full analytical solution is possible, for the latter we can lower bound the ML decoding threshold on the erasure channel by simply solving a 2 x 2 system of nonlinear equations.