arXiv subjects

Silas L. Fong

Publications and source records attributed to Silas L. Fong.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

Optimal Streaming Erasure Codes over the Three-Node Relay Network

This paper investigates low-latency streaming codes for a three-node relay network. The source transmits a sequence of messages (streaming messages) to the destination through the relay between them, where the first-hop channel from the source to the relay and the second-hop channel from the relay to the destination are subject to packet erasures. Every source message must be recovered perfectly at the destination subject to a fixed decoding delay of $T$ time slots. In any sliding window of $T+1$ time slots, we assume no more than $N_1$ and $N_2$ erasures are introduced by the first-hop channel and second-hop channel respectively. Under this channel loss assumption, we fully characterize the maximum achievable rate in terms of $T$, $N_1$ and $N_2$. The achievability is proved by using a symbol-wise decode-forward strategy where the source symbols within the same message are decoded by the relay with different delays. The converse is proved by analyzing the maximum achievable rate for each channel when the erasures in the other channel are consecutive (bursty). In addition, we show that traditional message-wise decode-forward strategies, which require the source symbols within the same message to be decoded by the relay with the same delay, are sub-optimal in general.

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arXiv2022

Adaptive relaying for streaming erasure codes in a three node relay network

This paper investigates adaptive streaming codes over a three-node relayed network. In this setting, a source node transmits a sequence of message packets to a destination through a relay. The source-to-relay and relay-to-destination links are unreliable and introduce at most $N_1$ and $N_2$ packet erasures, respectively. The destination node must recover each message packet within a strict delay constraint $T$. The paper presents achievable streaming codes for all feasible parameters $\{N_1, N_2, T\}$ that exploit the fact that the relay naturally observes the erasure pattern occurring in the link from source to relay, thus it can adapt its relaying strategy based on these observations. In a recent work, Fong et al. provide streaming codes featuring channel-state-independent relaying strategies. The codes proposed in this paper achieve rates higher than the ones proposed by Fong et al. whenever $N_2 > N_1$, and achieve the same rate when $N_2 = N_1$. The paper also presents an upper bound on the achievable rate that takes into account erasures in both links in order to bound the rate in the second link. The upper bound is shown to be tighter than a trivial bound that considers only the erasures in the second link.

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arXiv2020

Low-Latency Network-Adaptive Error Control for Interactive Streaming

We introduce a novel network-adaptive algorithm that is suitable for alleviating network packet losses for low-latency interactive communications between a source and a destination. Our network-adaptive algorithm estimates in real-time the best parameters of a recently proposed streaming code that uses forward error correction (FEC) to correct both arbitrary and burst losses, which cause a crackling noise and undesirable jitters, respectively in audio. In particular, the destination estimates appropriate coding parameters based on its observed packet loss pattern and sends them back to the source for updating the underlying code. Besides, a new explicit construction of practical low-latency streaming codes that achieve the optimal tradeoff between the capability of correcting arbitrary losses and the capability of correcting burst losses is provided. Simulation evaluations based on statistical losses and real-world packet loss traces reveal the following: (i) Our proposed network-adaptive algorithm combined with our optimal streaming codes can achieve significantly higher performance compared to uncoded and non-adaptive FEC schemes over UDP (User Datagram Protocol); (ii) Our explicit streaming codes can significantly outperform traditional MDS (maximum-distance separable) streaming schemes when they are used along with our network-adaptive algorithm.

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arXiv2020

An Explicit Rate-Optimal Streaming Code for Channels with Burst and Arbitrary Erasures

This paper considers the transmission of an infinite sequence of messages (a streaming source) over a packet erasure channel, where every source message must be recovered perfectly at the destination subject to a fixed decoding delay. While the capacity of a channel that introduces only bursts of erasures is well known, only recently, the capacity of a channel with either one burst of erasures or multiple arbitrary erasures in any fixed-sized sliding window has been established. However, the codes shown to achieve this capacity are either non-explicit constructions (proven to exist) or explicit constructions that require large field size that scales exponentially with the delay. This work describes an explicit rate-optimal construction for admissible channel and delay parameters over a field size that scales only quadratically with the delay.

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arXiv2019

Optimal Multiplexed Erasure Codes for Streaming Messages with Different Decoding Delays

This paper considers multiplexing two sequences of messages with two different decoding delays over a packet erasure channel. In each time slot, the source constructs a packet based on the current and previous messages and transmits the packet, which may be erased when the packet travels from the source to the destination. The destination must perfectly recover every source message in the first sequence subject to a decoding delay $T_\mathrm{v}$ and every source message in the second sequence subject to a shorter decoding delay $T_\mathrm{u}\le T_\mathrm{v}$. We assume that the channel loss model introduces a burst erasure of a fixed length $B$ on the discrete timeline. Under this channel loss assumption, the capacity region for the case where $T_\mathrm{v}\le T_\mathrm{u}+B$ was previously solved. In this paper, we fully characterize the capacity region for the remaining case $T_\mathrm{v}> T_\mathrm{u}+B$. The key step in the achievability proof is achieving the non-trivial corner point of the capacity region through using a multiplexed streaming code constructed by superimposing two single-stream codes. The main idea in the converse proof is obtaining a genie-aided bound when the channel is subject to a periodic erasure pattern where each period consists of a length-$B$ burst erasure followed by a length-$T_\mathrm{u}$ noiseless duration.

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arXiv2019

An Explicit Construction of Optimal Streaming Codes for Channels with Burst and Arbitrary Erasures

This paper presents a new construction of error correcting codes which achieves optimal recovery of a streaming source over a packet erasure channel. The channel model considered is the sliding window erasure model, with burst and arbitrary losses, introduced by Badr et al. . Recently, two independents works by Fong et al. and Krishnan and Kumar have identified optimal streaming codes within this framework. In this paper, we introduce streaming code when the rate of the code is at least 1/2. Our proposed construction is explicit and systematic, uses off-the-shelf maximum distance separable (MDS) codes and maximum rank distance (MRD) Gabidulin block codes as constituent codes and achieves the optimal error correction. It presents a natural generalization to the construction of Martinian and Sundberg to tolerate an arbitrary number of sparse erasures. The field size requirement which depends on the constituent MDS and MRD codes is also analyzed.

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arXiv2019

Strong Converse Theorems for Multimessage Networks with Tight Cut-Set Bound

This paper considers a multimessage network where each node may send a message to any other node in the network. Under the discrete memoryless model, we prove the strong converse theorem for any network whose cut-set bound is tight, i.e., achievable. Our result implies that for any fixed rate vector that resides outside the capacity region, the average error probabilities of any sequence of length-$n$ codes operated at the rate vector must tend to $1$ as $n$ approaches infinity. The proof is based on the method of types and is inspired by the work of Csiszár and Körner in 1982 which fully characterized the reliability function of any discrete memoryless channel (DMC) with feedback for rates above capacity. In addition, we generalize the strong converse theorem to the Gaussian model where each node is subject to an almost-sure power constraint. Important consequences of our results are new strong converses for the Gaussian multiple access channel (MAC) with feedback and the following relay channels under both models: The degraded relay channel (RC), the RC with orthogonal sender components, and the general RC with feedback.

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arXiv2019

Non-Asymptotic Achievable Rates for Gaussian Energy-Harvesting Channels: Best-Effort and Save-and-Transmit

An additive white Gaussian noise energy-harvesting channel with an infinite-sized battery is considered. The energy arrival process is modeled as a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables. The channel capacity $\frac{1}{2}\log(1+P)$ is achievable by the so-called best-effort and save-and-transmit schemes where $P$ denotes the battery recharge rate. This paper analyzes the save-and-transmit scheme whose transmit power is strictly less than $P$ and the best-effort scheme as a special case of save-and-transmit without a saving phase. In the finite blocklength regime, we obtain new non-asymptotic achievable rates for these schemes that approach the capacity with gaps vanishing at rates proportional to $1/\sqrt{n}$ and $\sqrt{(\log n)/n}$ respectively where~$n$ denotes the blocklength. The proof technique involves analyzing the escape probability of a Markov process. When $P$ is sufficiently large, we show that allowing the transmit power to back off from $P$ can improve the performance for save-and-transmit. The results are extended to a block energy arrival model where the length of each energy block $L$ grows sublinearly in $n$. We show that the save-and-transmit and best-effort schemes achieve coding rates that approach the capacity with gaps vanishing at rates proportional to $\sqrt{L/n}$ and $\sqrt{\max\{\log n, L\}/n}$ respectively.

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arXiv2018

Optimal Streaming Codes for Channels with Burst and Arbitrary Erasures

This paper considers transmitting a sequence of messages (a streaming source) over a packet erasure channel. In each time slot, the source constructs a packet based on the current and the previous messages and transmits the packet, which may be erased when the packet travels from the source to the destination. Every source message must be recovered perfectly at the destination subject to a fixed decoding delay. We assume that the channel loss model introduces either one burst erasure or multiple arbitrary erasures in any fixed-sized sliding window. Under this channel loss assumption, we fully characterize the maximum achievable rate by constructing streaming codes that achieve the optimal rate. In addition, our construction of optimal streaming codes implies the full characterization of the maximum achievable rate for convolutional codes with any given column distance, column span and decoding delay. Numerical results demonstrate that the optimal streaming codes outperform existing streaming codes of comparable complexity over some instances of the Gilbert-Elliott channel and the Fritchman channel.

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arXiv2017

On Achievable Rates of AWGN Energy-Harvesting Channels with Block Energy Arrival and Non-Vanishing Error Probabilities

This paper investigates the achievable rates of an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) energy-harvesting (EH) channel with an infinite battery. The EH process is characterized by a sequence of blocks of harvested energy, which is known causally at the source. The harvested energy remains constant within a block while the harvested energy across different blocks is characterized by a sequence of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random variables. The blocks have length $L$, which can be interpreted as the coherence time of the energy arrival process. If $L$ is a constant or grows sublinearly in the blocklength $n$, we fully characterize the first-order term in the asymptotic expansion of the maximum transmission rate subject to a fixed tolerable error probability $\varepsilon$. The first-order term is known as the $\varepsilon$-capacity. In addition, we obtain lower and upper bounds on the second-order term in the asymptotic expansion, which reveal that the second order term scales as $\sqrt{\frac{L}{n}}$ for any $\varepsilon$ less than $1/2$. The lower bound is obtained through analyzing the save-and-transmit strategy. If $L$ grows linearly in $n$, we obtain lower and upper bounds on the $\varepsilon$-capacity, which coincide whenever the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of the EH random variable is continuous and strictly increasing. In order to achieve the lower bound, we have proposed a novel adaptive save-and-transmit strategy, which chooses different save-and-transmit codes across different blocks according to the energy variation across the blocks.

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arXiv2017

A Tight Upper Bound on the Second-Order Coding Rate of the Parallel Gaussian Channel with Feedback

This paper investigates the asymptotic expansion for the maximum rate of fixed-length codes over a parallel Gaussian channel with feedback under the following setting: A peak power constraint is imposed on every transmitted codeword, and the average error probability of decoding the transmitted message is non-vanishing as the blocklength increases. It is well known that the presence of feedback does not increase the first-order asymptotics of the channel, i.e., capacity, in the asymptotic expansion, and the closed-form expression of the capacity can be obtained by the well-known water-filling algorithm. The main contribution of this paper is a self-contained proof of an upper bound on the second-order asymptotics of the parallel Gaussian channel with feedback. The proof techniques involve developing an information spectrum bound followed by using Curtiss' theorem to show that a sum of dependent random variables associated with the information spectrum bound converges in distribution to a sum of independent random variables, thus facilitating the use of the usual central limit theorem. Combined with existing achievability results, our result implies that the presence of feedback does not improve the second-order asymptotics.

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arXiv2017

A Proof of the Strong Converse Theorem for Gaussian Broadcast Channels via the Gaussian Poincaré Inequality

We prove that the Gaussian broadcast channel with two destinations admits the strong converse property. This implies that for every sequence of block codes operated at a common rate pair with an asymptotic average error probability $<1$, the rate pair must lie within the capacity region derived by Cover and Bergmans. The main mathematical tool required for our analysis is a logarithmic Sobolev inequality known as the Gaussian Poincaré inequality.

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arXiv2017

Scaling Exponent and Moderate Deviations Asymptotics of Polar Codes for the AWGN Channel

This paper investigates polar codes for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. The scaling exponent $μ$ of polar codes for a memoryless channel $q_{Y|X}$ with capacity $I(q_{Y|X})$ characterizes the closest gap between the capacity and non-asymptotic achievable rates in the following way: For a fixed $\varepsilon \in (0, 1)$, the gap between the capacity $I(q_{Y|X})$ and the maximum non-asymptotic rate $R_n^*$ achieved by a length-$n$ polar code with average error probability $\varepsilon$ scales as $n^{-1/μ}$, i.e., $I(q_{Y|X})-R_n^* = Θ(n^{-1/μ})$. It is well known that the scaling exponent $μ$ for any binary-input memoryless channel (BMC) with $I(q_{Y|X})\in(0,1)$ is bounded above by $4.714$, which was shown by an explicit construction of polar codes. Our main result shows that $4.714$ remains to be a valid upper bound on the scaling exponent for the AWGN channel. Our proof technique involves the following two ideas: (i) The capacity of the AWGN channel can be achieved within a gap of $O(n^{-1/μ}\sqrt{\log n})$ by using an input alphabet consisting of $n$ constellations and restricting the input distribution to be uniform; (ii) The capacity of a multiple access channel (MAC) with an input alphabet consisting of $n$ constellations can be achieved within a gap of $O(n^{-1/μ}\log n)$ by using a superposition of $\log n$ binary-input polar codes. In addition, we investigate the performance of polar codes in the moderate deviations regime where both the gap to capacity and the error probability vanish as $n$ grows. An explicit construction of polar codes is proposed to obey a certain tradeoff between the gap to capacity and the decay rate of the error probability for the AWGN channel.

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arXiv2016

Empirical Output Distribution of Good Delay-Limited Codes for Quasi-Static Fading Channels

This paper considers delay-limited communication over quasi-static fading channels under a long-term power constraint. A sequence of length-$n$ delay-limited codes for a quasi-static fading channel is said to be capacity-achieving if the codes achieve the delay-limited capacity, which is defined to be the maximum rate achievable by delay-limited codes. The delay-limited capacity is sometimes referred to as the zero-outage capacity in wireless communications. The delay-limited capacity is the appropriate choice of performance measure for delay-sensitive applications such as voice and video over fading channels. It is shown that for any sequence of capacity-achieving delay-limited codes with vanishing error probabilities, the normalized relative entropy between the output distribution induced by the length-$n$ code and the $n$-fold product of the capacity-achieving output distribution, denoted by $\frac{1}{n}D(p_{Y^n}\|p_{Y^n}^*)$, converges to zero. Additionally, we extend our convergence result to capacity-achieving delay-limited codes with non-vanishing error probabilities.

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arXiv2016

On the Scaling Exponent of Polar Codes for Binary-Input Energy-Harvesting Channels

This paper investigates the scaling exponent of polar codes for binary-input energy-harvesting (EH) channels with infinite-capacity batteries. The EH process is characterized by a sequence of i.i.d. random variables with finite variances. The scaling exponent $μ$ of polar codes for a binary-input memoryless channel (BMC) characterizes the closest gap between the capacity and non-asymptotic rates achieved by polar codes with error probabilities no larger than some non-vanishing $\varepsilon\in(0,1)$. It has been shown that for any $\varepsilon\in(0,1)$, the scaling exponent $μ$ for any binary-input memoryless symmetric channel (BMSC) with $I(q_{Y|X})\in(0,1)$ lies between 3.579 and 4.714 , where the upper bound $4.714$ was shown by an explicit construction of polar codes. Our main result shows that $4.714$ remains to be a valid upper bound on the scaling exponent for any binary-input EH channel, i.e., a BMC subject to additional EH constraints. Our result thus implies that the EH constraints do not worsen the rate of convergence to capacity if polar codes are employed. The main result is proved by leveraging the following three existing results: scaling exponent analyses for BMSCs, construction of polar codes designed for binary-input memoryless asymmetric channels, and the save-and-transmit strategy for EH channels.

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arXiv2016

Achievable Rates for Gaussian Degraded Relay Channels with Non-Vanishing Error Probabilities

This paper revisits the Gaussian degraded relay channel, where the link that carries information from the source to the destination is a physically degraded version of the link that carries information from the source to the relay. The source and the relay are subject to expected power constraints. The $\varepsilon$-capacity of the channel is characterized and it is strictly larger than the capacity for $\varepsilon>0$, which implies that the channel does not possess the strong converse property. The proof of the achievability part is based on several key ideas: block Markov coding which is used in the classical decode-forward strategy, power control for Gaussian channels under expected power constraints, and a careful scaling between the block size and the total number of block uses. The converse part is proved by first establishing two non-asymptotic lower bounds on the error probability, which are derived from the type-II errors of some binary hypothesis tests. Subsequently, each lower bound is simplified by conditioning on an event related to the power of some linear combination of the codewords transmitted by the source and the relay. Lower and upper bounds on the second-order term of the optimal coding rate in terms of blocklength and error probability are also obtained.

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arXiv2016

On Gaussian Channels with Feedback under Expected Power Constraints and with Non-Vanishing Error Probabilities

In this paper, we consider single- and multi-user Gaussian channels with feedback under expected power constraints and with non-vanishing error probabilities. In the first of two contributions, we study asymptotic expansions for the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel with feedback under the average error probability formalism. By drawing ideas from Gallager and Nakiboğlu's work for the direct part and the meta-converse for the converse part, we establish the $\varepsilon$-capacity and show that it depends on $\varepsilon$ in general and so the strong converse fails to hold. Furthermore, we provide bounds on the second-order term in the asymptotic expansion. We show that for any positive integer $L$, the second-order term is bounded between a term proportional to $-\ln_{(L)} n$ (where $\ln_{(L)}(\cdot)$ is the $L$-fold nested logarithm function) and a term proportional to $+\sqrt{n\ln n}$ where $n$ is the blocklength. The lower bound on the second-order term shows that feedback does provide an improvement in the maximal achievable rate over the case where no feedback is available. In our second contribution, we establish the $\varepsilon$-capacity region for the AWGN multiple access channel (MAC) with feedback under the expected power constraint by combining ideas from hypothesis testing, information spectrum analysis, Ozarow's coding scheme, and power control.

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arXiv2016

Non-Asymptotic Achievable Rates for Energy-Harvesting Channels using Save-and-Transmit

This paper investigates the information-theoretic limits of energy-harvesting (EH) channels in the finite blocklength regime. The EH process is characterized by a sequence of i.i.d. random variables with finite variances. We use the save-and-transmit strategy proposed by Ozel and Ulukus (2012) together with Shannon's non-asymptotic achievability bound to obtain lower bounds on the achievable rates for both additive white Gaussian noise channels and discrete memoryless channels under EH constraints. The first-order terms of the lower bounds of the achievable rates are equal to $C$ and the second-order (backoff from capacity) terms are proportional to $-\sqrt{ \frac{\log n}{n}}$, where $n$ denotes the blocklength and $C$ denotes the capacity of the EH channel, which is the same as the capacity without the EH constraints. The constant of proportionality of the backoff term is found and qualitative interpretations are provided.

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