Non-binary joint network-channel decoding of correlated sensor data in wireless sensor networks

The performance of non-binary joint network-channel decoding (NB-JNCD) is examined in wireless sensor networks with correlated sensors. The operating assumption is that systems containing multiple sensors in close proximity obtain correlated measurements. It is shown that, when the correlation model between sensors is known at the sink, the addition of a correlation-based decoder within the decoding framework greatly improves the error rate performance. Simulation results also indicate that the proposed correlation-based decoder is comparable to source coding across the correlated sensors in terms of error rate, while eliminating the need for costly sensor-to-sensor communication.