Powerful new coding schemes, like Turbo and LDPC codes, have successfully approached the theoretical limits of channel coding. These techniques have been applied to source coding, i.e. compression of sources, and Caire, Shamai and Verdu demonstrated how LDPC codes can be applied to the compression of sources with and without memory. Recently, distributed compression of sources (e.g. multiple sensors observing some correlated data) has been of great interest and there exists a wide range of problems where sometimes even the theoretical limits are still unknown.

The first part of the project consists of implementing lossless point-to-point compression using LDPC codes based on the above mentioned literature. This building block is then used in the second part of the project which focuses on distributed compression schemes like Slepian-Wolf coding and the Coded Side-Information problem.

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Free space optical (FSO) communications offers the opportunity for flexible and secure broadband digital communications without consuming valuable RF spectrum. ITR is currently investigating hybrid optical and RF channels that are each subject to different types of fading. Most FSO systems used low-power "eye-safe" lasers and direct-detection receivers with fixed pointing. Transmitter and receiver beamwidths can not be made too small due to atmospheric effects that introduce small angular variations in beam arrival and departure. FSO systems with adaptive tracking at the transmitter and receiver can use narrower beamwidths and thereby achieve better performance.

This project will complement existing FSO research at ITR by implementing a FSO system with adaptive beam steering. The objective will be to augment existing equipment with a electro-optic system that can track angular variations of up to about 1 milliradian, rather than the fixed manual alignment currently employed. This tracking scheme will operate over either long time scales (e.g. minutes) for slow tracking due to building movements, or short timescales (milliseconds) to track atmospheric variations. This project will require skills in signal processing and software engineering. The student will be exposed to a range of research projects and will work with ITR staff and research degree students.