Non-binary Irregular Repeat Codes

A novel scheme for channel coding, which is appropriate for image data, is introduced and applied along with the standard image source coding algorithms. The result is a new method for image communication which combines unequal error protection (UEP) and joint source-channel coding (JSCC). For channel coding, non-binary irregular repeat codes (NIRC) are introduced and applied. For source coding layer, any standard image compression algorithm (e.g. JPEG) can be used. The rate-redundancy-distortion characteristics of such JSCC approach are investigated. Objective measures like mean of square error and mean of absolute error, which are calculated for both the whole image and the region of interest, approve that NIRC is a powerful means for performing UEP. Simulations show that for image communication, NIRC outperform linear block codes.