Vladimir Stankovic, Lina Stankovic, Samuel Cheng
Distributed source coding (DSC) refers to separate compression and joint decompression of mutually correlated sources. One example is compression of multiple correlated sensor outputs that do not communicate with each other and the sensors send their compressed outputs for a centralized joint decoding. 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 with interest from both academia and industry. DSC has strong potentials to enable efficient and low-cost signal processing in sensor networks, to improve current video communication technologies and open the door for many exciting new multimedia applications. However, the impact of DSC is expected to be much broader and cannot be overstated, since the potential of DSC is limitless.
The tutorial addresses theory, code design, and application of DSC, with the following aims: 1) to introduce the theory of DSC and its connections to multimedia signal processing and signal processing for communications, 2) to survey recent advances and exciting progresses made in DSC, and 3) to discuss open challenges and opportunities in both theory and practical DSC designs. We hope this tutorial will provide the impetus for more signal processing researchers to contribute to the exciting and challenging field of DSC.
The tutorial is tailored to graduate students, engineers, and researchers in academia/industry working in the fields of signal processing, wireless communications, and multimedia processing. Basic knowledge of signal processing techniques is a pre-requisite.
Dr. Vladimir Stankovic received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 2000, and the Dr.-Ing. degree from the University of Leipzig, Germany, in 2003. From June 2003 to February 2006, he was with the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, College Station, USA. From March 2006 to September 2007, Dr Stankovic was with the Dept. of Communication Systems, Lancaster University, UK, as a Lecturer. In Oct. 2007, he joined the Dept. of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, where he is currently a Lecturer.
Dr. Stankovic has published over 70 papers in peer-reviewed leading scientific journals and prestigious international conference proceedings. He has been awarded several patents in the area of distributed source coding and applications, and is currently the holder of a three-year research grant by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to work on applications of Distributed Source Coding (DSC) to multimedia processing and communications. He has served on the Programme and Organizing Committees of international conferences, and has given many invited talks. Dr Stankovic serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE Communication Letters.
Dr. Stankovic has been teaching undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in the area of signal processing and communications in several institutions: Texas A&M College Station, Lancaster University, and University of Strathclyde, Institute for Signal Level Integration (ISLI), Livingstone.
His research focuses on image/signal processing, network information theory, wireless communications, and wireless ad hoc/sensor networks.
Dr. Lina Stankovic (Fagoonee) received her first-class BEng (Hons) degree in Electronic Communication Systems in 1999, and PhD in 2003 from Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. From May 2002 to September 2007, Dr Stankovic was with the Dept. of Communication Systems at Lancaster University, first as a Research Associate, then as a Lecturer for three years. Dr Stankovic has significant experience with industry, having worked with BT Research Labs in Ipswich, UK, QinetiQ UK and Philips Research Eindhoven. Dr Stankovic has published 2 book chapters and over 40 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conference proceedings. Dr Stankovic has been involved in many EPSRC and European Union research projects in the areas of signal processing for wireless communications, multimedia and optical storage. She has served on the Programme and Organizing Committees of international conferences and has given many invited talks to industry and academia.
Dr. Stankovic has been teaching undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in the area of signal processing and communications for five years. Dr Stankovic was nominated for a teaching prize for her innovative approach towards disseminating math-intensive material to an audience with varying mathematical backgrounds.
Her research interests include channel code design, signal processing for communications including equalization and synchronization, network coding, compressive sampling, all with applications in (but not limited to) wireless communications, sensor networks and storage.
Dr. Samuel Cheng received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Hong Kong in 1995, and the M.Phil. degree in Physics and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, in 1997 and 2000, respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station, in 2004.
Dr. Cheng worked in Microsoft Asia, China, and Panasonic Technologies Company, New Jersey, in the areas of texture compression and digital watermarking during the summers of 2000 and 2001. In 2004, he joined Advanced Digital Imaging Research, Houston, Texas. He has several patent submissions in the area on DSC and has been awarded three US patents. Since 2006, he has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, where he is currently an Assistant Professor. He is co-recipient of the 2006 IEEE Signal Processing Magazine Best Paper Award, which reviews DSC. His research interests include information theory, image/signal processing, and pattern recognition.
Dr. Cheng has been teaching graduate-level courses in the area of information theory and communications.