Random Field Estimation with Delay-Constrained and Delay-Tolerant Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, the authors study the problem of random-field estimation with wireless sensor networks. They consider two encoding strategies, namely, Compress-and-Estimate (C&E) and Quantize-and-Estimate (Q&E), which operate with and without side information at the decoder, respectively. They focus their attention on two scenarios of interest: delay-constrained networks, in which the observations collected in a particular time-slot must be immediately encoded and conveyed to the Fusion Center (FC); Delay-Tolerant (DT) networks, where the time horizon is enlarged to a number of consecutive time-slots.