Integer programming approach to unequal error protection coding for multiuser broadcast channels

In this study, an integer programming approach is introduced to construct unequal error protection (UEP) codes for a multiuser broadcast communication system. The authors establish integer programming models for both binary and non-binary UEP codes. The results show that optimal UEP codes can be constructed such that their code lengths achieve the integer programming bounds. Based on the bounds, the authors investigate asymptotic behaviour of code rates with symbols in GF(q), and the authors present performance analysis of multiuser communications over a degraded broadcast channel with the optimal UEP codes.