Reinforcement-learned unequal error protection for quantized semantic embeddings

This paper tackles the pressing challenge of preserving semantic meaning in communication systems constrained by limited bandwidth. We introduce a novel reinforcement learning framework that achieves per-dimension unequal error protection (UEP) via adaptive repetition coding. Central to our approach is a composite semantic distortion metric that balances global embedding similarity with entity-level preservation, empowering the reinforcement learning agent to allocate protection in a context-aware manner. Experiments show statistically significant gains over uniform protection, achieving 6.8% higher chrF scores and 9.3% better entity preservation at 1 dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). The key innovation of our framework is the demonstration that simple, intelligently allocated repetition coding enables fine-grained semantic protection, an advantage unattainable with conventional codes such as Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) or Reed–Solomon (RS). Our findings challenge traditional channel coding paradigms by establishing that code structure must align with semantic granularity. This approach is particularly suited to edge computing and IoT scenarios, where bandwidth is scarce, but semantic fidelity is critical, providing a practical pathway for next-generation semantic-aware networks.