Combined source and channel coding with JPEG2000 and rate-compatible low-density Parity-check codes

Rate-compatible low-density parity-check (RC-LDPC) codes are used to provide unequal error protection for the robust and efficient transmission of JPEG2000 compressed images over noisy channels. The total bit budget is partitioned between the source and the channel coding by using a Viterbi algorithm (VA) applied to a search trellis, and appropriate channel code rates are assigned to the source blocks. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated on binary symmetric channels (BSCs). Experimental results indicate that the proposed scheme compares favorably with other combined source/channel coding schemes over a variety of channel conditions and transmission bit rates. In particular, the proposed scheme outperforms similar schemes based on turbo codes and irregular repeat-accumulate codes by up to about 1.1 and 1 dB in the expected peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of reconstructed images, respectively.