FORTE-VLC: A forward tracing self-error correction variable length code for image coding in wireless application

Variable length code (VLC), also called Huffman code [1], is the most popular data compression technique used for solving transmission channel bandwidth bottleneck in image compression standards such as JPEG, MPEG, and H263. But, it is vulnerable to loss of synchronization if they are transmitted consecutively through a noisy wireless channel. It will result in large drops in transmission quality. We propose a novel VLC coding/decoding scheme, which has high error resilient and correction capability. It uses prefix-suffix coding structure and redundant bits for error tracing and correction. We called it as Forward Tracing Self-Error Correction VLC (FORTE-VLC). It provides high tolerances to random and burst errors in worsening channel conditions. In addition, it exhibits high synchronization capability. Simulation result shows that it can achieve 82% of error correction and 91% of synchronization capability for MPEG B.15 VLC table. It also achieves higher picture quality (PSNR=29.5dB) compared to existing VLC schemes at bit error rate (BER) of 10⁻³ environment. Finally, we present related codec architecture. It is very suitable and efficient for VLSI implementation. It has the advantage of low memory requirement and high throughput rate.