Analysis and Design of Multiple Description Codes for Wired and Wireless Channels

by Zhou, Yugang

The increasing demand on multimedia communication over wired and wireless networks imposes a continuous pressure on developing more robust coding schemes. Recently, joint source-channel coding with multiple description codes has become an attractive solution to ensure robust communication over noisy channels. In this thesis, we conduct analysis and design of multiple description codes for wired and wireless communication channels. First, a multiple description quantizer (MDQ) design method based on channel optimized quantization is developed. The proposed multiple channel optimized quantizer design scheme does not require index assignment and offers the benefit of resilience to both symbol and erasure errors. Low complexity MDQ is further explored and used to build a multiple description audio coder. Next, the advantages of employing multiple description coding over multiple-input multiple-output wireless channels are investigated. Information theoretical analysis is conducted and practical MDQ codes are designed. Finally, a new E-model based performance measure accounting for both rate-distortion performance and delay impairment is proposed to compare multiple description coding and layered coding for communication over packet networks. i