Distributed source coding: symmetric rates and applications to sensor networks

We address the problem of distributed source coding using a practical and constructive approach, referred to as distributed source coding using syndromes (DISCUS), with applications to sensor networks. We propose low complexity encoding and decoding methods based on linear codes, to achieve all points in the achievable rate region of the Slepian-Wolf (1973) problem. The extension of these concepts to the construction of Euclidean-space codes is also studied and analyzed for the case of trellis and lattice codes. The performance of these symmetric methods for encoding with a fidelity criterion is shown to be the same as that of asymmetric encoding. Simulations are presented to corroborate these results.