In this paper, we deal with the problem of jointly determining the optimal coding strategy and the scheduling decisions when receivers obtain layered data from multiple servers. The layered data is encoded by means of prioritized random linear coding (PRLC) in order to be resilient to channel loss while respecting the unequal levels of importance in the data, and data blocks are transmitted simultaneously in order to reduce decoding delays and improve the delivery performance. We formulate the optimal coding and scheduling decisions problem in our novel framework with the help of Markov decision processes (MDP), which are effective tools for modeling adapting streaming systems. Reinforcement learning approaches are then proposed to derive reduced computational complexity solutions to the adaptive coding and scheduling problems. The novel reinforcement learning approaches and the MDP solution are examined in an illustrative example for scalable video transmission . Our methods offer large performance gains over competing methods that deliver the data blocks sequentially. The experimental evaluation also shows that our novel algorithms offer continuous playback and guarantee small quality variations which is not the case for baseline solutions. Finally, our work highlights the advantages of reinforcement learning algorithms to forecast the temporal evolution of data demands and to decide the optimal coding and scheduling decisions .
Unfortunately, digital Fountain codes such as Raptor codes and LT codes may perform poorly in terms of delay @cite_16 @cite_24 . To this aim, systematic Random Linear Codes (RLC) with feedback have been studied in @cite_16 for minimizing the average delay in database replication systems. The feedback messages contain information about the packets that have been delivered to the receivers. These messages are used to optimize the coding decisions such that the decoding delay is small. The decoding delay distribution has been investigated in @cite_24 for RLC systems. Markov chains are utilized in order to find the optimal coding solution for the case of two receivers. However, this problem is computationally intractable for three or more receivers and hence only a heuristic solution is presented. The delay benefits of a RLC based scheme have been examined in @cite_14 , where repair packets are generated on-the-fly through RLC according to feedback messages that are periodically received by the servers. This scheme copes efficiently with the packet erasures and is appropriate for real-time sources such as video. From the above studies, the advantages of RLC over Fountain codes in terms of delay become clear.
@cite_24 @cite_14 @cite_16
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Digital fountain codes have emerged as a low-complexity alternative to Reed-Solomon codes for erasure correction. The applications of these codes are relevant especially in the field of wireless video, where low encoding and decoding complexity is crucial. In this paper, we introduce a new class of digital fountain codes based on a sliding-window approach applied to Raptor codes. These codes have several properties useful for video applications, and provide better performance than classical digital fountains. Then, we propose an application of sliding-window Raptor codes to wireless video broadcasting using scalable video coding. The rates of the base and enhancement layers, as well as the number of coded packets generated for each layer, are optimized so as to yield the best possible expected quality at the receiver side, and providing unequal loss protection to the different layers according to their importance. The proposed system has been validated in a UMTS broadcast scenario, showing that it improves the end-to-end quality, and is robust towards fluctuations in the packet loss rate. The performance of a novel fountain coding scheme based on maximum distance separable (MDS) codes constructed over Galois fields of order q>=2 is investigated. Upper and lower bounds on the decoding failure probability under maximum likelihood decoding are developed. Differently from Raptor codes (which are based on a serial concatenation of a high-rate outer block code, and an inner Luby-transform code), the proposed coding scheme can be seen as a parallel concatenation of an outer MDS code and an inner random linear fountain code, both operating on the same Galois field. A performance assessment is performed on the gain provided by MDS based fountain coding over linear random fountain coding in terms of decoding failure probability vs. overhead. It is shown how, for example, the concatenation of a (15,10) Reed-Solomon code and a linear random fountain code over F16 brings to a decoding failure probability 4 orders of magnitude lower than the linear random fountain code for the same overhead in a channel with a packet loss probability of epsilon=0.05. Moreover, it is illustrated how the performance of the concatenated fountain code approaches that of an idealized fountain code for higher-order Galois fields and moderate packet loss probabilities. The scheme introduced is of special interest for the distribution of data using small block sizes. Abstract In this paper, a novel error control scheme using Fountain codes is proposed in on–off keying (OOK) based visible light communications (VLC) systems. By using Fountain codes, feedback information is needed to be sent back to the transmitter only when transmitted messages are successfully recovered. Therefore improved transmission efficiency, reduced protocol complexity and relative little wireless link-layer delay are gained. By employing scrambling techniques and complementing symbols, the least complemented symbols are needed to support arbitrary dimming target values, and the value of entropy of encoded message are increased. In this letter, we propose a new decoding algorithm based on a soft-input soft-output run-length limited (RLL) decoder in visible light communication (VLC) with on–off keying (OOK) modulation and Reed–Solomon (RS) codes. Conventional RLL codes are used for dimming adjustments in VLC; however, in our receiver model, the posterior probability matrix is produced by the new RLL decoder, and it can be matched as the input of the soft RS decoder to enhance the throughput in the VLC system. A significant advantage of our proposed method is that it leads to the enhancement of bit error rate (BER) and frame error rate (FER) performances without any change in the transmitter in VLC systems. The simulation results show that the majority of the BER and FER performances of our proposed method are better than those of hard-input hard-output RLL decoding and soft-input hard-output RLL decoding methods.