Turbo decoding for distributed source coding with combined distortion

Turbo codes are a promising technique for distributed source coding (DSC) in sensor networks because of their simple encoding implementation and high decoding performance. However, different from a conventional channel decoding scenario, decoding in DSC generally involves different types of distortion from physical and virtual channels. In this letter, we adapt the turbo decoding to handle data mixed with two types of distortion simultaneously. By adjusting the channel reliability values and the calculation of extrinsic information, it will be shown to what extent the decoding with the adaptation outperforms one considering single type of distortion only. Moreover, the adaptation, matching well with the realistic DSC scenario, only requires a slight change for an existing turbo decoding hardware unit.