Joint source channel decoding of multiple descriptions

In this paper we consider the transmission of multiple descriptions over a channel where there are random errors in addition to erasures. We present a list Viterbi algorithm (LVA) based joint decoding scheme which exploits the correlation introduced by the multiple description encoding to improve the signal to noise ratio at the receiver. The scheme is applied to a two description scalar quantized system and a binary symmetric channel. Simulation results show that it achieves a significant improvement over separate decoding