Near-Capacity Variable-Length Coding

Recent developments such as the invention of powerful turbo-decoding and irregular designs, together with the increase in the number of potential applications to multimedia signal compression, have increased the importance of variable length coding (VLC). Providing insights into the very latest research, the authors examine the design of diverse near-capacity VLC codes in the context of wireless telecommunications.

The book commences with an introduction to Information Theory, followed by a discussion of Regular as well as Irregular Variable Length Coding and their applications in joint source and channel coding. Near-capacity designs are created using Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) chart analysis. The latest techniques are discussed, outlining radical concepts such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) aided construction of diverse VLC codes. The book concludes with two chapters on VLC-based space-time transceivers as well as on frequency-hopping assisted schemes, followed by suggestions for future work on the topic.

• Surveys the historic evolution and development of VLCs
• Discusses the very latest research into VLC codes
• Introduces the novel concept of Irregular VLCs and their application in joint-source and channel coding

Lajos Hanzo University of Southampton, UK
Lajos Hanzo has held various research and academic posts in Hungary, Germany and the UK. Since 1986 he has been with the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK and has been a consultant to Multiple Access Communications Ltd., UK. He currently holds the established Chair of Telecommunications. He co-authored 17 Wiley/IEEE Press books on mobile radio communications and published in excess of 800 research papers.

Robert G. Maunder, University of Southampton, UK
Robert G. Maunder has studied with the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK, since October 2000. His research interests include video coding, joint source/channel coding and iterative decoding. In 2007 he was appointed a lecturer in the School of ECS, Univ. of Southampton.

Jin Wang, Aeroflex, UK
Jin Wang recently joined Aeroflex, Cambridge, UK. His research interests include video coding, channel coding, joint source/channel coding, and iterative detection and decoding for digital communication systems. He published numerous IEEE journal and conference papers on related topics.

Lie-Liang Yang, University of Southampton, UK
Lie-Liang Yang works in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK, and currently holds the academic post of Readership. Dr. Yang's research has covered a wide range of topics in wireless communications, networking and signal processing. He has published over 200 research papers in journals and conference proceedings, authored/co-authored two books and also published several book chapters.