Energy Efficient Multi-Modal Probabilistic Semantic Communication (PSCom)

In this paper, we propose an uplink multi-modal probabilistic semantic communication (PSCom) system that considers both communication and computation. In the considered PSCom model, the users and base station share the common knowledge, which is characterized by probability graph. Based on the shared probability graph, the original large-size semantic data is compressed into the small-size semantic information, which will introduce additional computation costs for semantic compression. Besides, semantic information recovered by the base station will also bring additional computation costs. Although this method incurs additional computation costs, it effectively reduces communication energy consumption. Based on the considered model, an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the total communication and computation energy consumption, considering latency, power budget, bandwidth, and semantic compression ratio constraints. To solve this mixed integer optimization problem, we first adopt a integer programming algorithm for the semantic compression level selection of each modality, thereby transforming the original problem into a continuous variable optimization problem. Then, derive the optimal solution of the communication power. Finally, the Lagrange multiplier method is used to determine the optimal bandwidth, which can result in a closed-form optimal solution. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.