Joint distortion model for progressive image transmission using error correcting arithmetic codes

A novel joint source channel distortion model was proposed, which can essentially estimate the average distortion in progressive image transmission. To improve the precision of the model, the redundancy generated by a forbidden symbol in the arithmetic codes is used to distinguish the quantization distortion and the channel distortion, all the coefficients from the first error one to the end of the sequence are set to be a value within the variance range of the coefficients instead of zero, then the error propagation coming from the entropy coding can be essentially estimated, which is disregarded in the most conventional joint source channel coding (JSCC) systems. The precision of the model in terms of average peak-signal-to-noise has been improved about 0.5 dB compared to classical works. An efficient unequal error protection system based on the model is developed, and can be used in the wireless communication systems. Foundation item: The National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 60202006)