Network-aware Source Coding and Communication

Book excerpt: An introduction to the theory and techniques for achieving high quality network communication with the best possible bandwidth economy, this book focuses on network information flow with fidelity. Covering both lossless and lossy source reconstruction, it is illustrated throughout with real-world applications, including sensor networks and multimedia communications. Practical algorithms are presented, developing novel techniques for tackling design problems in joint network-source coding via collaborative multiple description coding, progressive coding, diversity routing and network coding. With systematic introductions to the basic theories of distributed source coding, network coding and multiple description coding, this is an ideal self-contained resource for researchers and students in information theory and network theory.