Distributed joint source-channel coding in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Considering the fact that sensors are energy-limited and the wireless channel conditions in wireless sensor networks, there is an urgent need for a low-complexity coding method with high compression ratio and noise-resisted features. This paper reviews the progress made in distributed joint source-channel coding which can address this issue. The main existing deployments, from the theory to practice, of distributed joint sourcechannel coding over the independent channels, the multiple access channels and the broadcast channels are introduced, respectively. To this end, we also present a practical scheme for compressing multiple correlated sources over the independent channels. The simulation results demonstrate the desired efficiency. © 2009 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.