Robust Mobile Multimedia Communications

Abstract : This report describes the final results obtained on this project. We detail the technical contributions made under the support of this grant. The technical contributions are in the two focus areas: (1) Time-varying convolutional codes and their application to turbo codes. (2) Joint-source channel coding for multimedia applications. Results in the area of time-varying convolutional codes are discussed including the discovery of a new time-varying convolutional code that achieves the Heller bound and has free distance greater than the best time-variant convolutional code. The report also investigates the application of time-varying convolutional codes as component codes in turbo codes. The work done in this area resulted in a new time-varying component code that outperforms the celebrated big numerator, little denominator (BNLD) codes of Massey, Takeshita and Costello. Finally, this report contains a thorough simulation comparison of the state of the art of joint-source channel coding schemes for image transmission.