Post Shannon Theory

Contents

The course provides an introduction to post-Shannon theory, which deals with goal-oriented communication. A central example is the message identification introduced by Ahlswede and Dueck, which is used in particular in alarm and control systems. It is remarkable that it is possible to surpass the barriers known from classical information theory.

The aim of the course is to provide students with a sound understanding of essential information theory concepts so that they can derive them independently at the end. For this purpose, the information measures necessary for analytical considerations (e.g. entropy, transinformation, capacity) and their properties (e.g. typical sequences) as well as practically relevant identification codes are dealt with.

Main topics of the course:

• Introduction to the basic concepts of post-Shannon theory
• Basics of message identification
• Proof techniques for randomized and deterministic coding
• Protocols with resources (feedback, sensing, common randomness)
• Methods for calculating upper bounds on capacity (resolvability)
• Coding methods for message identification

Course with 5 credit points.

Lecturer: Christian Deppe