Jiancheng Tang

Motivated by task-oriented semantic communication and distributed learning systems, this paper studies a distributed indirect source coding problem where M correlated sources are independently encoded for a central decoder. The decoder has access to correlated side information in addition to the messages received from the encoders and aims to recover a latent random variable under a given distortion constraint rather than recovering the sources themselves. We characterize the exact rate-distortion function for the case where the sources are conditionally independent given the side information. Furthermore, we develop a distributed Blahut–Arimoto (BA) algorithm to numerically compute the rate-distortion function. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in calculating the rate-distortion region.

In this paper, we propose a semantic communication approach based on probabilistic graphical model (PGM). The proposed approach involves constructing a PGM from a training dataset, which is then shared as common knowledge between the transmitter and receiver. We evaluate the importance of various semantic features and present a PGM-based compression algorithm designed to eliminate predictable portions of semantic information. Furthermore, we introduce a technique to reconstruct the discarded semantic information at the receiver end, generating approximate results based on the PGM. Simulation results indicate a significant improvement in transmission efficiency over existing methods, while maintaining the quality of the transmitted images.

As conventional communication systems based on classic information theory have closely approached the limits of Shannon channel capacity, semantic communication has been recognized as a key enabling technology for the further improvement of communication performance. However, it is still unsettled on how to represent semantic information and characterise the theoretical limits. In this paper, we consider a semantic source which consists of a set of correlated random variables whose joint probabilistic distribution can be described by a Bayesian network. Then we give the information-theoretic limit on the lossless compression of the semantic source and introduce a low complexity encoding method by exploiting the conditional independence. We further characterise the limits on lossy compression of the semantic source and the corresponding upper and lower bounds of the rate-distortion function. We also investigate the lossy compression of the semantic source with side information at both the encoder and decoder, and obtain the rate distortion function. We prove that the optimal code of the semantic source is the combination of the optimal codes of each conditional independent set given the side information.

Performing as an important technology, microwave interferometry helps understand and analyze plasma characteristics. However, the relatively appropriate diagnosing methods being discovered for investigating fast time-varying plasma have met with limited success so far. The crucial problem of this task lies in eliminating the interference of additive noise while compensating for phase ambiguity of the initial point and of the phase jump points. In particular, randomly varying electron density and noise make it impossible to directly detect these points. Theoretical analysis has found that the time-varying electron density of plasma causes the received signal to rotate on the complex plane. Inspired by this fact, a deep learning (DL) method is proposed to track the time-varying plasma and solve the above two problems, during which the deep neural network (DNN) is utilized to extract the curve from the data, thereby eliminating the noise and detecting the initial point and the phase jump points according to the projection of the data on the curve. Experimental results suggest that the learned curve is in good consistency with the ground-truth curve. Meanwhile, the time-varying electron density and the collision frequency can be accurately diagnosed using the learned curve.

The phenomenon of radio blackout due to a plasma sheath during reentry has attracted much attention over the last several decades. However, radio blackout has long puzzled aerospace researchers and has not yet been completely resolved. Owing to the effects of the time-varying plasma sheath channel environment, the constellation of received signals exhibits multiple manifolds, making the traditional algorithms based on Euclidean distance unable to perform demodulation. In the current study, we proposed a novel demodulation method based on spectral clustering for phase-modulated signals interrupted by the plasma sheath channel. Experimental results revealed that as long as the receiving radio waves were above the floor of receiver's dynamic range, the proposed algorithm effectively classified received signals after time-varying plasma. The parasitic modulation interference caused by time-varying plasma was restrained effectively through the novel algorithm. In contrast to the traditional communication method, the proposed method can be applied to telemetry, track and command, as well as communication between reentry vehicles and near-space hypersonic vehicles in future.