Compressive measurements generated by structurally random matrices: Asymptotic normality and quantization

Structurally random matrices (SRMs) are a practical alternative to fully random matrices (FRMs) when generating compressive sensing measurements because of their computational efficiency and their universality with respect to the sparsifying basis. In this work we derive the statistical distribution of compressive measurements generated by various types of SRMs, as a function of the signal properties. We show that under a wide range of conditions, that distribution is a mixture of asymptotically multi-variate normal components. We point out the implications for quantization and coding of the measurements and discuss design considerations for measurements transmission systems. Simulations on real-world video signals confirm the theoretical findings and show that the signal randomization of SRMs yields a dramatic improvement in quantization properties.