CIF: Small: Harnessing Network Compression Gains: Fundamental Limits and Practical Implementations

过去信息消费的增长主要是通过增加我们的电信基础设施的比特承载能力来推动的，包括铺设光纤等资本改进，以及使这种基础设施能够承载更多比特的技术进步。然而，这种简单地转移更多比特的方法现在似乎面临着回报递减的问题。相比之下，人们对数据压缩如何减少必须传输的比特数的关注较少。因此，未来人均信息消费的增长可能是由压缩方面的改进推动的。该项目还将通过为专门的信息理论和数据压缩研究生课程编写可采用的课程材料，促进改善STEM教育。这项研究探讨了如何利用压缩方面的成果，特别是网络收益。这项工作将集中在两个尚未很好理解的简单网络的有损压缩上：(1)几个编码者观察到不同的信源并将压缩版本发送到中央解码器以寻求再现信源的问题，以及(2)单个编码器向多个解码器广播信源的压缩版本的问题，后者利用边信息来再现信源。对于这两个问题，PI试图确定一类实际重要的实例的信息理论率失真权衡。对于第一个问题，PI还将测量在实践中可以通过构建系统来压缩从电网获得的同步相量数据而获得的网络增益。

Past increases in information consumption have been fueled mainly by increasing the bit-carrying capacity of our telecommunications infrastructure, including capital improvements such as laying fiber as well as technological advances that enable this infrastructure to carry more bits. This approach of simply moving more bits now appears to be facing diminishing returns, however. In contrast, there has been less attention paid to how data compression can reduce the number of bits that must be communicated. Thus future increases in per-capita information consumption could be driven by improvements in compression. This project will also contribute to improved STEM education through the development of adoptable course materials for a dedicated graduate-level course on information theory and data compression.This research examines how to harness gains in compression, especially network gains. The work will focus on lossy compression for two simple networks that are not well understood: (1) the problem in which several encoders observe separate sources and send compressed versions to a centralized decoder, who seeks to reproduce the sources, and (2) the problem in which a single encoder broadcasts a compressed version of a source to multiple decoders, who reproduce the source with the benefit of side information. For both problems the PIs seek to determine the information-theoretic rate-distortion tradeoffs for a practically-important class of instances. For the first problem, the PIs will also measure the network gains that can be obtained in practice by constructing a system to compress synchrophasor data obtained from the power grid.