An Algorithm for Computing the Shannon-Capacity ofArbitrary Channels
- Questions arising from Statistical Decision Theory, Bayes Methods and other probability theoretic fields lead to concepts of orthogonality of a family of probability measures. In this paper we therefore give a sketch of a generalized information theory which is very helpful in considering and answering those questions. In this adapted information theory Shannon's classical transition channels modelled by finite stochastic matrices are replaced by compact families of probability measures that are uniformly integrable. These channels are characterized by concepts such as information rate and capacity and by optimal priors and the optimal mixture distribution. For practical studies we introduce an algorithm to calculate the capacity of the whole probability family which is appli cable even for general output space. We then explain how the algorithm works and compare its numerical costs with those of the classical Arimoto-Blahut-algorithm.