English

If sufficient demand

Information theory studies the fundamental limits of information transmission and storage.

The course is divided into two parts. The aim of Part I is to introduce the fundamental concepts of information theory, focusing on classical point-to-point transmission scenarios. This part is based on selected chapters of the book by Cover/Thomas, which has been widely used as graduate level entry into information theory. In Part II the perspective is extended to multi-user communication scenarios, following selected parts of the book by El Gamal/Kim, which provides an excellent overview of current state-of-art in the field. Using these two books makes the course both up-to-date and self-contained so that no prior background in information theory is required.

Part I: entropy, mutual information and their properties, typical sequences, data compression, source coding theorem, channel capacity, channel coding theorem, continuous random variables, differential entropy, Gaussian channels

Part II: multiple access channels, broadcast channels, interference channels, channels with state: writing on dirty paper, distributed compression: Slepian-Wolf theorem, Gaussian vector channels, wireless fading channels, relay channels

be well familiar with standard information theoretic concepts
able to explain the proofs of the source coding theorem and the channel coding theorem
understand how to generalize the concepts and proofs to multi-user scenarios

be able to apply information theoretic methods in order to derive fundamental limits for different communication scenarios
have acquired sufficient knowledge within the field to be able discuss information theory problems with established researchers

have demonstrated the ability to independently extract the important content of an extensive document, such as a textbook
have demonstrated the ability to reflect the material of the course and to understand possibilities and limitations of information theoretic bounds

Lectures

Exercises

The aim of the exercise classes is to discuss the home assignments. The doctoral students should present and discuss ways to solve the problems.

Oral exam

Written assignments

Attendance of at least 80% of the lectures and exercise lessons are a requirement to pass the course.

Failed, pass

Solid skills in engineering mathematics, including probability theory, linear algebra and calculus.

Thomas M. Cover, Joy A. Thomas: Elements of Information Theory. Wiley, 2006.
Gamal, A. & Kim, Y.: Network Information Theory. Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN 9781107008731.

Course Coordinator: Michael Lentmaier

EIT145F

 -11-02

Professor Thomas Johansson