Age-Distortion Tradeoffs in Communication Systems

Watch a 54-minute research lecture from EPFL researcher Yunus Inan at the Centre for Networked Intelligence, IISc, exploring the fundamental tradeoffs between timeliness and distortion in data transmission systems. Dive into an analysis of how traditional rate-distortion theory fails to address timely reconstruction of source data, and discover a new framework for examining the balance between content preservation and transmission delay. Learn about a discrete-time model where packet transmission decisions must balance content value against timeliness, with practical implications for modern communication systems. Explore how finite-memory strategies can achieve optimal tradeoffs in packet-based transmission, and understand why cross-packet coding proves superior for small payloads. The lecture draws from Inan's doctoral research at EPFL's Information Theory Laboratory, where he investigates cutting-edge problems in communication and information theories.