Communication over Individual Channels

TL;DR

This paper explores communication over unknown channels, proposing achievable rates based on observed input-output data and a feedback-based rate-adaptive scheme that approaches these rates without prior channel knowledge.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework for communication over channels with no predefined model, including a rate-adaptive scheme utilizing feedback to achieve optimal rates asymptotically.

Findings

Achievable rates are derived as functions of observed input-output data.

A feedback-based rate-adaptive scheme is proposed that asymptotically attains these rates.

The methods apply to both discrete and continuous channels.

Abstract

We consider the problem of communicating over a channel for which no mathematical model is specified. We present achievable rates as a function of the channel input and output known a-posteriori for discrete and continuous channels, as well as a rate-adaptive scheme employing feedback which achieves these rates asymptotically without prior knowledge of the channel behavior.