Slepian-Wolf Coding Using Parity Approach and Syndrome Approach

The binning/syndrome approach and the parity approach together constitute the primary methodologies for practical distributed source coding, whereas the former is known for its (proven) optimality and the latter for its operational simplicity. Since the practice of the former in an general channel code has not been popular, except low density parity check (LDPC) codes, and since a good theoretic understanding of the latter is still incomplete, this paper performs a comprehensive study of these approaches to fill the gap. The study covers both theoretical and practical aspects, including the practical implementation of the source encoder and decoder for both approaches, the criterion for designing the base channel codes, and their respective performances and robustness in both the noiseless and the noisy transmission environments.