Information conductivity: Universal performance measure for semantic communications

Abstract

As a novel paradigm, semantic communication provides an effective solution for breaking through the future development dilemma of classical communication systems. However, it remains an unsolved problem of how to measure the information transmission capability for a given semantic communication method and subsequently compare it with the classical communication method. In this paper, we first present a review of the semantic communication system, including its system model and the two typical coding and transmission methods for its implementations. To address the unsolved issue of the information transmission capability measure for semantic communication methods, we propose a new universal performance measure called Information Conductivity. We provide the definition and the physical significance to state its effectiveness in representing the information transmission capabilities of the semantic communication systems and present elaborations including its measure methods, degrees of freedom, and progressive analysis. Experimental results in image transmission scenarios validate its practical applicability.