From Theory to Practice: A Testbed for DL-Based Semantic Communication Architecture

In today's interconnected world, traditional communication methods have reached the maximum potential set by Shannon's limit. Semantic communication (SemCom) emerged as a response to this situation. It is a visionary strategy that surpasses Shannon's limit, grounded in well-established theoretical foundations, including definitions of semantic noise, semantic encoding/decoding, semantic entropy, semantic channel capacity, and semantic rate-distortion. However, translating these theoretical concepts into practical implementation presents challenges. In this regard, we propose a SemCom-based testbed featuring an encoder-decoder architecture for handling semantic information. This architecture turns theory into a practical system to enhance SemCom strategies. The testbed will aid researchers in developing new protocols, facilitating the adaptation and enhancement of SemCom systems.