Integer-Forcing (IF) is a new framework, based on compute-and-forward, for
decoding multiple integer linear combinations from the output of a Gaussian
multiple-input multiple-output channel. This work applies the IF approach to
arrive at a new low-complexity scheme, IF source coding, for distributed lossy
compression of correlated Gaussian sources under a minimum mean squared error
distortion measure. All encoders use the same nested lattice codebook. Each
encoder quantizes its observation using the fine lattice as a quantizer and
reduces the result modulo the coarse lattice, which plays the role of binning.
Rather than directly recovering the individual quantized signals, the decoder
first recovers a full-rank set of judiciously chosen integer linear
combinations of the quantized signals, and then inverts it. In general, the
linear combinations have smaller average powers than the original signals. This
allows to increase the density of the coarse lattice, which in turn translates
to smaller compression rates. We also propose and analyze a one-shot version of
IF source coding, that is simple enough to potentially lead to a new design
principle for analog-to-digital converters that can exploit spatial
correlations between the sampled signals.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor