Joint optimization of VQ codebooks and QAM signal constellations for AWGN channels

A joint design scheme has been proposed to optimize the source encoder and the modulation signal constellation based on the minimization of the end-to-end distortion including both the quantization error and channel distortion. The proposed scheme first optimizes the vector quantization (VQ) codebook for a fixed modulation signal set, and then the modulation signals for the fixed VQ codebook. These two steps are iteratively repeated until they reach a local optimum solution. It has been shown that the performance of the proposed system can be enhanced by employing a new efficient mapping scheme between codevectors and modulation signals. Simulation results show that a jointly optimized system based on the proposed algorithms outperforms the conventional system based on a conventional quadrature amplitude modulation signal set and the VQ codebook designed for a noiseless channel.