Semantic Communication: Evolving Beyond Shannon’s Limits

In today’s fast-paced world, communication has evolved beyond simple phone conversations to ultra-low-latency video calls, virtual reality games, and more. However, existing technologies have reached their limits in terms of data transfer speed and energy consumption, making it crucial to explore new communication paradigms. This paper introduces "Semantic Communication" (SeComm), a novel approach that aims to efficiently and securely transmit information by extracting critical details from the original data before transmission.
The traditional method of data-oriented communication focuses on conveying the complete original information, which can lead to significant delays and energy consumption. In contrast, SeComm separates the critical information (i.e., semantic information) from the unnecessary details, allowing for faster transfer times while maintaining data security. This process is made possible through the use of a probability graph that illustrates the interrelationships among entities in the communication network, enabling the calculation of the likelihood of a connection between any two vertices.
To illustrate this concept, imagine a large library filled with books containing various types of information. Traditional communication would involve transmitting every book from the library, leading to extensive delays and energy consumption. SeComm, on the other hand, allows us to identify the most critical books (i.e., semantic information) and transmit them quickly while the remaining books are stored locally for later retrieval. This approach not only enhances communication speed but also reduces energy consumption and security risks.
The authors propose several key components of SeComm, including utility functions, latency management, and physical layer security. Utility functions measure the accuracy of semantic information recovery, which should be non-decreasing as the amount of semantic information increases. Latency management aims to minimize communication delays by balancing the transmission rate and the amount of semantic information transmitted. Physical layer security focuses on ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of the transmitted semantic information.
In conclusion, SeComm offers a promising new approach to efficient and secure information transfer. By extracting critical details from original data and leveraging probability graphs to manage interrelationships in the communication network, SeComm has the potential to revolutionize various applications, including virtual reality games, emergency services, and IoT devices. While there are still challenges to be addressed, this innovative technology holds great promise for enhancing our communication systems.