Joint source-channel turbo decoding of entropy-coded sources

We analyze the dependencies between the variables involved in the source and channel coding chain. This analysis is carried out in the framework of Bayesian networks, which provide both an intuitive representation for the global model of the coding chain and a way of deriving joint (soft) decoding algorithms. Three sources of dependencies are involved in the chain: (1) the source model, a Markov chain of symbols; (2) the source coder model, based on a variable length code (VLC), for example a Huffman code; and (3) the channel coder, based on a convolutional error correcting code. Joint decoding relying on the hidden Markov model (HMM) of the global coding chain is intractable, except in trivial cases. We advocate instead an iterative procedure inspired from serial turbo codes, in which the three models of the coding chain are used alternately. This idea of using separately each factor of a big product model inside an iterative procedure usually requires the presence of an interleaver between successive components. We show that only one interleaver is necessary here, placed between the source coder and the channel coder. The decoding scheme we propose can be viewed as a turbo algorithm using alternately the intersymbol correlation due to the Markov source and the redundancy introduced by the channel code. The intermediary element, the source coder model, is used as a translator of soft information from the bit clock to the symbol clock     

Joint source-channel decoding for variable-length encoded data byexact and approximate MAP sequence estimation

Joint source-channel decoding based on residual source redundancy is an effective paradigm for error-resilient data compression. While previous work only considered fixed-rate systems, the extension of these techniques for variable-length encoded data was independently proposed by the authors and by Demir and Sayood (see Proc. Data Comp. Conf., Snowbird, UT, p.139-48, 1998). We describe and compare the performance of a computationally complex exact maximum a posteriori (MAP) decoder, its efficient approximation, an alternative approximate decoder, and an improved version of this decoder are suggested. Moreover, we evaluate several source and channel coding configurations. The results show that our approximate MAP technique outperforms other approximate methods and provides substantial error protection to variable-length encoded data     

Low-complexity iterative joint source-channel decoding for variable-length encoded Markov sources

In this paper, we present a novel packetized bit-level decoding algorithm for variable-length encoded Markov sources, which calculates reliability information for the decoded bits in the form of a posteriori probabilities (APPs). An interesting feature of the proposed approach is that symbol-based source statistics in the form of the transition probabilities of the Markov source are exploited as a priori information on a bit-level trellis. This method is especially well-suited for long input blocks, since in contrast to other symbol-based APP decoding approaches, the number of trellis states does not depend on the packet length. When additionally the variable-length encoded source data is protected by channel codes, an iterative source-channel decoding scheme can be obtained in the same way as for serially concatenated codes. Furthermore, based on an analysis of the iterative decoder via extrinsic information transfer charts, it can be shown that by using reversible variable-length codes with a free distance of two, in combination with rate-1 channel codes and residual source redundancy, a reliable transmission is possible even for highly corrupted channels. This justifies a new source-channel encoding technique where explicit redundancy for error protection is only added in the source encoder.     

On the joint source-channel decoding of variable-length encoded sources: the additive-Markov case

We propose an optimal joint source-channel maximum a posteriori probability decoder for variable-length encoded sources transmitted over a wireless channel, modeled as an additive-Markov channel. The state space introduced by the authors in a previous paper is used to take care of the unique challenges posed by variable-length codes. Simulations demonstrate, that this decoder performs substantially better than the standard Huffman decoder for a simple test source and is robust to inaccuracies in channel statistics estimates. The proposed algorithm also compares favorably to a standard forward error correction-based system.     

Joint turbo decoding and estimation of hidden Markov sources

We describe a joint source-channel scheme for modifying a turbo decoder in order to exploit the statistical characteristics of hidden Markov sources. The basic idea is to treat the trellis describing the hidden Markov source as another constituent decoder which exchanges information with the other constituent decoder blocks. The source block uses as extrinsic information the probability of the input bits that is provided by the constituent decoder blocks. On the other hand, it produces a new estimation of such a probability which will be used as extrinsic information by the constituent turbo decoders. The proposed joint source-channel decoding technique leads to significantly improved performance relative to systems in which source statistics are not exploited and avoids the need to perform any explicit source coding prior to transmission. Lack of a priori knowledge of the source parameters does not degrade the performance of the system, since these parameters can be jointly estimated with turbo decoding     

Joint source-channel and multiuser decoding for Rayleigh fadingCDMA channels

We consider joint source-channel and multiuser decoding for frequency selective Rayleigh fading code-division multiple-access channels. The block source-channel encoder is defined by a vector quantizer. We investigate optimal (minimum mean-square error) decoding and “user-separated” decoding of lower complexity. The studied decoders are soft in the sense that they utilize all soft information available at the receiver. Simulations indicate significant performance gains of the introduced decoders compared with a tandem approach that uses maximum-likelihood multiuser detection plus table-lookup decoding     

Joint source-channel coding and guessing with application tosequential decoding

We extend our earlier work on guessing subject to distortion to the joint source-channel coding context. We consider a system in which there is a source connected to a destination via a channel and the goal is to reconstruct the source output at the destination within a prescribed distortion level with respect to (w.r.t.) some distortion measure. The decoder is a guessing decoder in the sense that it is allowed to generate successive estimates of the source output until the distortion criterion is met. The problem is to design the encoder and the decoder so as to minimize the average number of estimates until successful reconstruction. We derive estimates on nonnegative moments of the number of guesses, which are asymptotically tight as the length of the source block goes to infinity. Using the close relationship between guessing and sequential decoding, we give a tight lower bound to the complexity of sequential decoding in joint source-channel coding systems, complementing earlier works by Koshelev (1973) and Hellman (1975). Another topic explored here is the probability of error for list decoders with exponential list sizes for joint source-channel coding systems, for which we obtain tight bounds as well. It is noteworthy that optimal performance w.r.t. the performance measures considered here can be achieved in a manner that separates source coding and channel coding     

Joint source-channel coding using combined TCQ/CPM: iterative decoding

An iterative decoding approach to joint source and channel coding (JSCC) using combined trellis-coded quantization (TCQ) and continuous phase modulation (CPM) is proposed. The channel is assumed to be the additive white Gaussian noise channel. This iterative procedure exploits the structure of the TCQ encoder and the continuous phase modulator. The performance in terms of the signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR) is compared with that of a combined TCQ/trellis-coded modulation (TCM) system. It is shown that the combined TCQ/CPM systems are both power- and bandwidth-efficient, compared with the combined TCQ/TCM system. For source encoding rate R=2 b/sample, it is observed that the combined TCQ/CPM systems with iterative decoding working at symbol level converge faster than the systems working at bit level. The novelty of this work is the use of a soft decoder and an iterative decoding algorithm for TCQ-based JSCC systems. The combined TCQ/CPM with iterative decoding is considered for the first time.     

Joint source-channel turbo coding for binary Markov sources

We investigate the construction of joint source-channel (JSC) turbo codes for the reliable communication of binary Markov sources over additive white Gaussian noise and Rayleigh fading channels. To exploit the source Markovian redundancy, the first constituent turbo decoder is designed according to a modified version of Berrou's original decoding algorithm that employs the Gaussian assumption for the extrinsic information. Due to interleaving, the second constituent decoder is unable to adopt the same decoding method; so its extrinsic information is appropriately adjusted via a weighted correction term. The turbo encoder is also optimized according to the Markovian source statistics and by allowing different or asymmetric constituent encoders. Simulation results demonstrate substantial gains over the original (unoptimized) Turbo codes, hence significantly reducing the performance gap to the Shannon limit. Finally, we show that our JSC coding system considerably outperforms tandem coding schemes for bit error rates smaller than 10/sup -4/, while enjoying a lower system complexity.     

Joint source-channel decoding of variable-length codes for convolutional codes and turbo codes

Several recent publications have shown that joint source-channel decoding could be a powerful technique to take advantage of residual source redundancy for fixed- and variable-length source codes. This letter gives an in-depth analysis of a low-complexity method recently proposed by Guivarch et al., where the redundancy left by a Huffman encoder is used at a bit level in the channel decoder to improve its performance. Several simulation results are presented, showing for two first-order Markov sources of different sizes that using a priori knowledge of the source statistics yields a significant improvement, either with a Viterbi channel decoder or with a turbo decoder.     

结合残留冗余信息与MMSE估计的信源信道联合编解码

文中提出一种利用残留冗余的RDPCM信源信道联合编码系统与最小均方误差估计结合的方法.首先,本文针对联合编码系统修正了SOVA算法,在接收端获得利用残留冗余后的比特似然度;然后利用这些后验信息,对信源预测编码器的输出符号值进行最小均方误差重建后再进行信源译码,从而减小了由于硬判决得到符号值所带来的失真.仿真结果显示这种算法在信噪比的低端最大得到了约2dB的增益.     

Robust decoding of variable-length encoded Markov sources using a three-dimensional trellis

In this letter, we present an improved index-based a-posteriori probability (APP) decoding approach for the error-resilient transmission of packetized variable-length encoded Markov sources. The proposed algorithm is based on a novel two-dimensional (2D) state representation which leads to a three-dimensional trellis with unique state transitions. APP decoding on this trellis is realized by employing a 2D version of the BCJR algorithm where all available source statistics can be fully exploited in the source decoder. For an additional use of channel codes the proposed approach leads to an increased error-correction performance compared to a one-dimensional state representation.     

Joint parameter estimation and decoding in a distributed receiver

This paper presents an algorithm for iterative joint channel parameter (carrier phase, Doppler shift, and Doppler rate) estimation and decoding of transmission over channels affected by Doppler shift and Doppler rate using a distributed receiver. This algorithm is derived by applying the sum-product algorithm (SPA) to a factor graph representing the joint a posteriori distribution of the information symbols and channel parameters given the channel output. In this paper, we present two methods for dealing with intractable messages of the SPA. In the first approach, we use particle filtering with sequential importance sampling for the estimation of the unknown parameters. We also propose a method for fine-tuning of particles for improved convergence. In the second approach, we approximate our model with a random walk phase model, followed by a phase tracking algorithm and polynomial regression algorithm to estimate the unknown parameters. We derive the Weighted Bayesian Cramer-Rao Bounds for joint carrier phase, Doppler shift, and Doppler rate estimation, which take into account the prior distribution of the estimation parameters and are accurate lower bounds for all considered signal-to-noise ratio values. Numerical results (of bit error rate and the mean-square error of parameter estimation) suggest that phase tracking with the random walk model slightly outperforms particle filtering. However, particle filtering has a lower computational cost than the random walk model-based method.     

Turbo decodulation: iterative combined demodulation and source-channel decoding

We propose the combination of iterative demodulation and iterative source-channel decoding as a multiple turbo process. The receiver structures of bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID), iterative source-channel decoding (ISCD), and iterative source coded modulation (ISCM) are merged to one novel turbo system, in which in two iterative loops reliability information is exchanged between the three single components, demodulator, channel decoder and (softbit) source decoder. Simulations show quality improvements compared to the different previously known systems, which use iterative processing only for two components of the receiver.     

Iterative joint source-channel decoding with combined a priori information of source and channel

A joint source-channel decoding (JSCD) scheme which exploits the combined a priori information of source and channel in an iterative manner is proposed. A sequence minimum mean-square error (SMMSE) estimator based on bit or symbol error transition probability of the channel with memory is proposed and used in the iterative decoding process. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme leads to significant improvement over the scheme without using the a priori information of the source or channel.     

Reconstruction of predictively encoded signals over noisy channels using a sequence MMSE decoder

In this paper, we consider the problem of decoding predictively encoded signal over a noisy channel when there is residual redundancy (captured by a /spl gamma/-order Markov model) in the sequence of transmitted data. Our objective is to minimize the mean-squared error (MSE) in the reconstruction of the original signal (input to the predictive source coder). The problem is formulated and solved through minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) decoding of a sequence of samples over a memoryless noisy channel. The related previous works include several maximum a posteriori (MAP) and MMSE-based decoders. The MAP-based approaches are suboptimal when the performance criterion is the MSE. On the other hand, the previously known MMSE-based approaches are suboptimal, since they are designed to efficiently reconstruct the data samples received (the prediction residues) rather than the original signal. The proposed scheme is set up by modeling the source-coder-produced symbols and their redundancy with a trellis structure. Methods are presented to optimize the solutions in terms of complexity. Numerical results and comparisons are provided, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed techniques.     

Joint iterative channel estimation and decoding in flat correlatedRayleigh fading

This paper addresses the design and performance evaluation with respect to capacity of M-PSK turbo-coded systems operating in frequency-flat time-selective Rayleigh fading. The receiver jointly performs channel estimation and turbo decoding, allowing the two processes to benefit from each other. To this end, we introduce a suitable Markov model with a finite number of states, designed to approximate both the values and the statistical properties of the correlated flat fading channel phase, which poses a more severe challenge to PSK transmission than amplitude hiding. Then, the forward-backward algorithm determines both the maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) value for each symbol in the data sequence and the MAP channel phase in each iteration. Simulations show good performance in standard correlated Rayleigh fading channels. A sequence of progressively tighter upper bounds to the capacity of a simplified Markov-phase channel is derived, and performance of a turbo code with joint iterative channel estimation and decoding is demonstrated to approach these capacity bounds     

Analysis and optimization of irregular LDPC codes for joint source-channel decoding

In this paper, we present a characterization, through its convergence analysis, and an optimisation of a joint source-channel receiver composed of a LDPC decoder and a Soft Input Soft Output (SISO) source decoder. Under Gaussian approximation, assuming the knowledge of the extrinsic mutual information transfer function (EXIT chart) of the source decoder, we derive the Mutual Information evolution equations, that semianalytically describe the convergence of the iterative system behavior and, to complete the study, the stability condition at the convergence fixed point is derived for the joint receiver. From this analysis, a general optimisation method of the irregularity of the LDPC codes is proposed, which can be reduced to a linear programming optimisation problem. Simulation results show improved performance when compared to an AWGN optimized LDPC code.     

On the joint source-channel decoding of variable-length encodedsources: the BSC case

This paper proposes an optimal maximum a posteriori probability decoder for variable-length encoded sources over binary symmetric channels (BSC) that uses a novel state-space to deal with the problem of variable-length source codes in the decoder. This sequential, finite-delay, joint source-channel decoder delivers substantial improvements over the conventional decoder and also over a system that uses a standard forward error correcting code operating at the same over all bit rates. This decoder is also robust to inaccuracies in the estimation of channel statistics     

Correlated sources over wireless channels: cooperative source-channel coding

We consider wireless sensor networks deployed to observe arbitrary random fields. The requirement is to reconstruct an estimate of the random field at a certain collector node. This creates a many-to-one data gathering wireless channel. One of the main challenges in this scenario is that the source/channel separation theorem, proved by Shannon for point-to-point links, does not hold any more. In this paper, we construct novel cooperative source-channel coding schemes that exploit the wireless channel and the correlation between the sources. In particular, we differentiate between two distinct cases. The first case assumes that the sensor nodes are equipped with receivers and, hence, every node can exploit the wireless link to distribute its information to its neighbors. We then devise an efficient deterministic cooperation strategy where the neighboring nodes act as virtual antennas in a beamforming configuration. The second, and more challenging, scenario restricts the capability of sensor nodes to transmit only. In this case, we argue that statistical cooperative source-channel coding techniques still yield significant performance gains in certain relevant scenarios. Specifically, we propose a low complexity cooperative source-channel coding scheme based on the proper use of low-density generator matrix codes. This scheme is shown to outperform the recently proposed joint source-channel coding scheme (Garcia-Frias et al., 2002) in the case of highly correlated sources. In both the deterministic and statistical cooperation scenarios, we develop analytical results that guide the optimization of the proposed schemes and validate the performance gains observed in simulations.