Code Construction and Decoding Algorithms for Semi-Quantitative Group Testing with Nonuniform Thresholds

We analyze a new group testing system, termed semi-quantitative group testing, which may be viewed as a concatenation of an adder channel and a discrete quantizer. Our focus is on non-uniform quantizers with arbitrary thresholds. For a given choice of parameters for the semi-quantitative group testing model, we define three new families of sequences capturing the constraints on the code design imposed by the choice of the thresholds. The sequences represent extensions and generalizations of Bh and certain types of super-increasing and lexicographically ordered sequences, and they lead to code structures amenable for efficient recursive decoding. We describe the decoding methods and provide an accompanying computational complexity and performance analysis. I