Motivated by streaming applications with stringent delay constraints, we consider the design of online network coding algorithms with timely delivery guarantees. Assuming that the sender is providing the same data to multiple receivers over independent packet erasure channels, we focus on the case of perfect feedback and heterogeneous erasure probabilities. Based on a general analytical framework for evaluating the decoding delay, we show that existing ARQ schemes fail to ensure that receivers with weak channels are able to recover from packet losses within reasonable time. To overcome this problem, we re-define the encoding rules in order to break the chains of linear combinations that cannot be decoded after one of the packets is lost. Our results show that sending uncoded packets at key times ensures that all the receivers are able to meet specific delay requirements with very high probability.
Optimal zero-delay coding (quantization) of $\mathbb{R}^d$-valued linearly generated Markov sources is studied under quadratic distortion. The structure and existence of deterministic and stationary coding policies that are optimal for the infinite horizon average cost (distortion) problem are established. Prior results studying the optimality of zero-delay codes for Markov sources for infinite horizons either considered finite alphabet sources or, for the $\mathbb{R}^d$-valued case, only showed the existence of deterministic and non-stationary Markov coding policies or those which are randomi…
We present a closed-form expression for the minimal delay that is achievable in a setting that combines a buffer and an erasure code, used to mitigate the packet delay variance. The erasure code is modeled according to the recent information-theoretic results on finite block length codes. Evaluations reveal that accurate knowledge of the network parameters is essential for optimal operation. Moreover, it is shown that, when the network packet delay variance is large, the buffer delay becomes negligible. Therefore, in this case the delay budget should be spent mainly on the erasure code.
The optimal zero delay coding of a finite state Markov source is considered. The existence and structure of optimal codes are studied using a stochastic control formulation. Prior results in the literature established the optimality of deterministic Markov (Walrand-Varaiya type) coding policies for finite time horizon problem, and the optimality of both deterministic nonstationary and randomized stationary policies for the infinite time horizon problem. Our main result here shows that for any irreducible and aperiodic Markov source with a finite alphabet, \emph{deterministic and stationary} Ma…
In this paper, we investigate the secure coding issue for a wiretap channel model with fixed main channel and varying wiretap channel, by assuming that legitimate parties can obtain the wiretapping channel state information (CSI) after some time delay. For the symmetric degraded delay CSI case, we present an explicit weak security scheme by constructing secure polar codes on a one-time pad chaining structure, and prove its weak security, reliability and capability of approaching the secrecy capacity of perfect CSI case with delay CSI assumption. Further for the symmetric no-degraded delay CSI …
In this paper, we introduce novel coding schemes for wireless networks with random transmission delays. These coding schemes obviate the need for synchronicity, reduce the number of transmissions and achieve the optimal rate region in the corresponding wired model for both multiple unicast and multicast cases with up to three users under the equal rate constraint. The coding schemes are presented in two phases; first, coding schemes for line, star and line-star topologies with random transmission delays are provided. Second, any general topology with multiple bidirectional unicast and multicas…
This paper extends the well-known source coding problem of multiple descriptions, in its general and basic setting, to analog source-channel coding scenarios. Encoding-decoding functions that optimally map between the (possibly continuous valued) source and the channel spaces are numerically derived. The main technical tool is a non-convex optimization method, namely, deterministic annealing, which has recently been successfully used in other mapping optimization problems. The obtained functions exhibit several interesting structural properties, map multiple source intervals to the same interv…
We use stochastic network calculus to investigate the delay performance of a multiuser MISO system with zero-forcing beamforming. First, we consider ideal assumptions with long codewords and perfect CSI at the transmitter, where we observe a strong channel hardening effect that results in very high reliability with respect to the maximum delay of the application. We then study the system under more realistic assumptions with imperfect CSI and finite blocklength channel coding. These effects lead to interference and to transmission errors, and we derive closed-form lower and upper bounds on the…
For data streaming applications, existing solutions are not yet able to close the gap between high data rates and low delay. This work considers the problem of data streaming under mixed delay constraints over a single communication channel with delayed feedback. We propose a novel layered adaptive causal random linear network coding (LAC-RLNC) approach with forward error correction. LAC-RLNC is a variable-to-variable coding scheme, i.e., variable recovered information data at the receiver over variable short block length and rate is proposed. Specifically, for data streaming with base and enh…
Network Coding is a packet encoding technique which has recently been shown to improve network performance (by reducing delays and increasing throughput) in broadcast and multicast communications. The cost for such an improvement comes in the form of increased decoding complexity (and thus delay) at the receivers end. Before delivering the file to higher layers, the receiver should first decode those packets. In our work we consider the broadcast transmission of a large file to N wireless users. The file is segmented into a number of blocks (each containing K packets - the Coding Window Size).…
We propose a new coding scheme, called the delayed coding (DC) scheme, for channels with insertion, deletion, and substitution (IDS) errors. The proposed scheme employs delayed encoding and non-iterative detection and decoding strategies to manage the transmission of multiple codewords in a linear code. In the DC scheme, a channel input sequence consists of subblocks of multiple codewords from the previous to current time instances. At the receiver side, the maximum a posteriori detection applies to the received sequences that contain information of the codeword at the current time instance, w…
The Slepian-Wolf (SW) coding system is a source coding system with two encoders and a decoder, where these encoders independently encode source sequences from two correlated sources into codewords, and the decoder reconstructs both source sequences from the codewords. In this paper, we consider the situation in which the SW coding system is asynchronous, i.e., each encoder samples a source sequence with some unknown delay. We assume that delays are unknown but maximum and minimum values of possible delays are known to encoders and the decoder. We also assume that sources are discrete stationar…
In wireless broadcast, random linear network coding (RLNC) over GF(2^L) is known to asymptotically achieve the optimal completion delay with increasing L. However, the high decoding complexity hinders the potential applicability of RLNC schemes over large GF(2^L). In this paper, a comprehensive analysis of completion delay and decoding complexity is conducted for field-based systematic RLNC schemes in wireless broadcast. In particular, we prove that the RLNC scheme over GF(2) can also asymptotically approach the optimal completion delay per packet when the packet number goes to infinity. Moreo…
We consider a system in which two nodes take correlated measurements of a random source with time-varying and unknown statistics. The observations of the source at the first node are to be losslessly replicated with a given probability of outage at the second node, which receives data from the first node over a constant-rate errorless channel. We develop a system and associated strategies for joint distributed source coding (encoding and decoding) and transmission control in order to achieve low end-to-end delay. Slepian-Wolf coding in its traditional form cannot be applied in our scenario, si…
We study the broadcast transmission of a single file to an arbitrary number of receivers using Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) in a network with unreliable channels. Due to the increased computational complexity of the decoding process (especially for large files) we apply chunked RLNC (i.e. RLNC is applied within non-overlapping subsets of the file). In our work we show the optimality of the Least Received (LR) batch scheduling policy (which was introduced in our prior work) with regards to the expected file transfer completion time. Furthermore, we refine some of our earlier results, nam…
As the next-generation wireless networks thrive, full-duplex and relay techniques are combined to improve the network performance. Random linear network coding (RLNC) is another popular technique to enhance the efficiency and reliability of wireless communications. In this paper, in order to explore the potential of RLNC in full-duplex relay networks, we investigate two fundamental perfect RLNC schemes and theoretically analyze their completion delay performance. The first scheme is a straightforward application of conventional perfect RLNC studied in wireless broadcast, so it involves no addi…
A major challenge of wireless multicast is to be able to support a large number of users while simultaneously maintaining low delay and low feedback overhead. In this paper, we develop a joint coding and feedback scheme named Moving Window Network Coding with Anonymous Feedback (MWNC-AF) that successfully addresses this challenge. In particular, we show that our scheme simultaneously achieves both a constant decoding delay and a constant feedback overhead, irrespective of the number of receivers $n$, without sacrificing either throughput or reliability. We explicitly characterize the asymptoti…
In this paper, we consider multiple cache-enabled clients connected to multiple servers through an intermediate network. We design several topology-aware coding strategies for such networks. Based on topology richness of the intermediate network, and types of coding operations at internal nodes, we define three classes of networks, namely, dedicated, flexible, and linear networks. For each class, we propose an achievable coding scheme, analyze its coding delay, and also, compare it with an information theoretic lower bound. For flexible networks, we show that our scheme is order-optimal in ter…
We study whether using non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in the uplink of a mobile network can improve the performance over orthogonal multiple access (OMA) when the system requires ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC). To answer this question, we first consider an ideal system model with perfect channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter and long codewords, where we determine the optimal decoding orders when the decoder uses successive interference cancellation (SIC) and derive closed-form expressions for the optimal rate when joint decoding is used. While joint decod…
We consider the situation in which a continuous-time vector Gauss-Markov process is observed through a vector Gaussian channel (sensor) and estimated by the Kalman-Bucy filter. Unlike in standard filtering problems where a sensor model is given a priori, we are concerned with the optimal sensor design by which (i) the mutual information between the source random process and the reproduction (estimation) process is minimized, and (ii) the minimum mean-square estimation error meets a given distortion constraint. We show that such a sensor design problem is tractable by semidefinite programming. …
In this paper, we propose two novel physical layer aware adaptive network coding and coded modulation schemes for time variant channels. The proposed schemes have been applied to different satellite communications scenarios with different Round Trip Times (RTT). Compared to adaptive network coding, and classical non-adaptive network coding schemes for time variant channels, as benchmarks, the proposed schemes demonstrate that adaptation of packet transmission based on the channel variation and corresponding erasures allows for significant gains in terms of throughput, delay and energy efficien…
Source-channel coding for an energy limited wireless sensor node is investigated. The sensor node observes independent Gaussian source samples with variances changing over time slots and transmits to a destination over a flat fading channel. The fading is constant during each time slot. The compressed samples are stored in a finite size data buffer and need to be delivered in at most $d$ time slots. The objective is to design optimal transmission policies, namely, optimal power and distortion allocation, over the time slots such that the average distortion at destination is minimized. In parti…
