Unified framework of source-channel-modulation coding in low power multimedia wireless communications

We study the problem of jointly optimizing source/channel/modulation coding to achieve a given quality of service while minimizing the total power consumption of mobiles. This paper emphasizes the design of a robust transmission framework in the context of a total power minimization scheme. We design a simple but efficient transmission scheme which is called multistage coded modulation that combines source/channel (S/C) coding and multirate modulation (MM). We then integrate into this scheme a complexity-scalable video coder to achieve the best trade-offs in multimedia wireless communications between total power, quality of service, and capacity. Preliminary results show superior video frame quality (around 3 dB better than the simple S/C coding scheme) of the proposed system in the severe channel condition, with total power consumption kept to a minimum.