In Information Theory, a common assumption is that “whenever the transmitter speaks thereceiver listens.” In other words, in general, there is the assumption of perfect synchronization between the transmitter and the receiver, and, basic quantities, such as the channel capacity and the coding delay, are defined under this hypothesis. In practice, this assumption is rarely fulfilled; due to the spasmodic nature of the information source, the transmitter may start emitting at random moments, and the receiver needs a certain period of time to realize that the transmitter has started to emit information. The goal of the present project is to model the notion of synchronization, incorporate it as a basic notion into Information Theory, and propose high rate and reliable coding schemes that minimize the penalty due to a lack of synchronization.
The motivation for this project is twofold. First, in practice synchronization requires a nonnegligible amount of energy to be spent in addition to the energy used for transmittinginformation. Hence, short and efficient synchronization procedures are needed. Second, formulating basic quantities, such as the capacity and the reliability function of a channel, taking into account the notion of synchronization may lead to new performance criteria as well as new channel coding designs.