Distributed Joint Source-Channel Coding Using Quasi-Uniform Systematic Polar Codes

This paper proposes a distributed joint source-channel coding (DJSCC) scheme using polar-like codes. In the proposed scheme, each distributed source encodes source message with a quasi-uniform systematic polar code (QSPC) or a punctured QSPC, and only transmits parity bits over its independent channel. These systematic codes play the role of both source compression and error protection. For the infinite code-length, we show that the proposed scheme approaches the information-theoretical limit by the technique of joint source-channel polarization with side information. For the finite code-length, the simulation results verify that the proposed scheme outperforms the distributed separate source-channel coding (DSSCC) scheme using polar codes and the DJSCC scheme using classic systematic polar codes.