Network information theory (ECE 231B)

Course Description:

This is an advanced graduate class that covers classical and recent developments in network information theory. It starts with a refresher on the background of basic information theory, the Shannon channel coding theorem, and the basic rate-distortion theorem. It also touches on the point-to-point MIMO wireless communications, which has revolutionized wireless system design. The rest of the course is on information flow over a network of nodes and sources. We develop classical results in network information theory for broadcast, multiple access, interference, and relay channels. We then focus on more recent developments in network information theory. These include some approximate characterizations of information flow over wireless networks, which have been motivated by deterministic modeling techniques that approximately model wireless channels. We will also develop ideas in network data compression including recent advances in multiple-description coding.

This course was taught at UCLA in Winter 2011-12, and Winter 2014-15.