A Generalization of Blahut-Arimoto Algorithm to Compute Rate-Distortion Regions of Multiterminal Source Coding Under Logarithmic Loss

TL;DR

This paper introduces iterative algorithms to compute the rate-distortion regions for multiterminal source coding and CEO problems under logarithmic loss, connecting these models with the distributed information bottleneck method.

Contribution

The paper extends the Blahut-Arimoto algorithm to handle multiterminal source coding problems under logarithmic loss, providing a practical computational approach.

Findings

Algorithms efficiently compute rate-distortion regions.

Numerical examples demonstrate algorithm effectiveness.

Connection with distributed information bottleneck enhances applicability.

Abstract

In this paper, we present iterative algorithms that numerically compute the rate-distortion regions of two problems: the two-encoder multiterminal source coding problem and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) problem, both under logarithmic loss distortion measure.With the clear connection of these models with the distributed information bottleneck method, the proposed algorithms may find usefulness in a variety of applications, such as clustering, pattern recognition and learning. We illustrate the efficiency of our algorithms through some numerical examples.