title: Soft decoding and synchronization of arithmetic codes: application to image transmission over noisy channels.
abstract: This paper addresses the issue of robust and joint source-channel decoding of arithmetic codes. We first analyze dependencies between the variables involved in arithmetic coding by means of the Bayesian formalism. This provides a suitable framework for designing a soft decoding algorithm that provides high error-resilience. It also provides a natural setting for "soft synchronization", i.e., to introduce anchors favoring the likelihood of "synchronized" paths. In order to maintain the complexity of the estimation within a realistic range, a simple, yet efficient, pruning method is described. The algorithm can be placed in an iterative source-channel decoding structure, in the spirit of serial turbo codes. Models and algorithms are then applied to context-based arithmetic coding widely used in practical systems (e.g., JPEG-2000). Experimentation results with both theoretical sources and with real images coded with JPEG-2000 reveal very good error resilience performances.
authors.affiliation: Projet TEMICS, IRISA-INRIA Campus de Beaulieu, 35042 Rennes Cedex, France. thomas.guionnet@irisa.fr
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Guionnet
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guillemot