A visual base image coding using unequal error protection in high error rate channels

Reliable transmission of high quality images over noisy channels represents a great challenge. In this paper, we propose an unequal error protection (UEP) scheme for image transmission over noisy channels based on the bit error sensitivity of different bit planes. Since these bit planes have different orders, transmission errors visually have different effects on the image. So, if we allocate more parity bits to the higher order bit planes, a receiver with UEP capability can recover the higher order bit planes more correctly than the lower order ones. Our proposed scheme employs the simple repetition codes, and we present it in two parts of error correction, and a combination of error detection and correction. We represent both schemes by computing error probability, risk factor, and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). Simulation results show that our proposed scheme increases the visual quality of the image up to almost 1.4 dB in terms of PSNR relatively to that of equal error protection.