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 @math and the second-order (backoff from capacity) terms are proportional to @math , where @math denotes the blocklength and @math 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.
As mentioned above, finite blocklength analysis for EH channels was only considered previously by Yang @cite_6 . However, the channel considered therein is noiseless and has binary inputs and binary outputs. Our framework is considerably more general and we consider noisy discrete as well as Gaussian channels from a finite blocklength perspective. The study of finite blocklength fundamental limits in Shannon-theoretic problems was undertaken by Polyanskiy, Poor and Verd 'u @cite_18 . Such a study is useful as it provides guidelines regarding the required backoff from the asymptotic fundamental limit (capacity) when one operates at finite blocklengths. For a survey, please see @cite_2 .
@cite_18 @cite_6 @cite_2
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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 @math and the second-order (backoff from capacity) terms are proportional to @math , where @math denotes the blocklength and @math 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. This thesis proposes two constructive methods of approaching the Shannon limit very closely. Interestingly, these two methods operate in opposite regions, one has a block length of one and the other has a block length approaching infinity. The first approach is based on novel memoryless joint source-channel coding schemes. We first show some examples of sources and channels where no coding is optimal for all values of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). When the source bandwidth is greater than the channel bandwidth, joint coding schemes based on space-filling curves and other families of curves are proposed. For uniform sources and modulo channels, our coding scheme based on space-filling curves operates within 1.1 dB of Shannon's rate-distortion bound. For Gaussian sources and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels, we can achieve within 0.9 dB of the rate-distortion bound. The second scheme is based on low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. We first demonstrate that we can translate threshold values of an LDPC code between channels accurately using a simple mapping. We develop some models for density evolution from this observation, namely erasure-channel, Gaussian-capacity, and reciprocal-channel approximations. The reciprocal-channel approximation, based on dualizing LDPC codes, provides a very accurate model of density evolution for the AWGN channel. We also develop another approximation method, Gaussian approximation, which enables us to visualize infinite-dimensional density evolution and optimization of LDPC codes. We also develop other tools to better understand density evolution. Using these tools, we design some LDPC codes that approach the Shannon limit extremely closely. For multilevel AWGN channels, we design a rate 1 2 code that has a threshold within 0.0063 dB of the Shannon limit of the noisiest level. For binary-input AWGN channels, our best rate 1 2 LDPC code has a threshold within 0.0045 dB of the Shannon limit. Simulation results show that we can achieve within 0.04 dB of the Shannon limit at a bit error rate of 10−6 using a block length of 10 7. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.) This monograph presents a unified treatment of single- and multi-user problems in Shannon's information theory where we depart from the requirement that the error probability decays asymptotically in the blocklength. Instead, the error probabilities for various problems are bounded above by a non-vanishing constant and the spotlight is shone on achievable coding rates as functions of the growing blocklengths. This represents the study of asymptotic estimates with non-vanishing error probabilities.In Part I, after reviewing the fundamentals of information theory, we discuss Strassen's seminal result for binary hypothesis testing where the type-I error probability is non-vanishing and the rate of decay of the type-II error probability with growing number of independent observations is characterized. In Part II, we use this basic hypothesis testing result to develop second- and sometimes, even third-order asymptotic expansions for point-to-point communication. Finally in Part III, we consider network information theory problems for which the second order asymptotics are known. These problems include some classes of channels with random state, the multiple-encoder distributed lossless source coding (Slepian-Wolf) problem and special cases of the Gaussian interference and multiple-access channels. Finally, we discuss avenues for further research. The capacity of the two-user Gaussian interference channel has been open for 30 years. The understanding on this problem has been limited. The best known achievable region is due to Han and Kobayashi but its characterization is very complicated. It is also not known how tight the existing outer bounds are. In this work, we show that the existing outer bounds can in fact be arbitrarily loose in some parameter ranges, and by deriving new outer bounds, we show that a very simple and explicit Han-Kobayashi type scheme can achieve to within a single bit per second per hertz (bit s Hz) of the capacity for all values of the channel parameters. We also show that the scheme is asymptotically optimal at certain high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regimes. Using our results, we provide a natural generalization of the point-to-point classical notion of degrees of freedom to interference-limited scenarios.