Distributed source coding: Theory and applications

Distributed source coding (DSC) refers to separate compression and joint decompression of mutually correlated sources. Though theoretical foundations were set more than thirty years ago, driven by applications such as wireless sensor networks, video surveillance, and multiview video, DSC has over the past few years become a very active research area. This paper provides an introduction to DSC theory, practical code designs and applications, and outlines current research trends while identifying challenges and opportunities in both theory and practice of DSC.