Robust Joint Source-Channel Coding for Delay-Limited Applications

In this paper, we consider the problem of robust joint source-channel coding over an additive white Gaussian noise channel. We propose a new scheme which achieves the optimal slope of the signal-to-distortion (SDR) curve (unlike the previously known coding schemes). Also, we propose a family of robust codes which together maintain a bounded gap with the optimum SDR curve (in terms of dB). To show the importance of this result, we drive some theoretical bounds on the asymptotic performance of delay-limited hybrid digital-analog (HDA) coding schemes. We show that, unlike the delay-unlimited case, for any family of delay-limited HDA codes, the asymptotic performance loss is unbounded (in terms of dB).