Introduction:

In this Ph.D., our goal is to develop practical coding schemes for distributed hypothesis testing (DHT).
In this scenario, a source 𝑿 is encoded given that side information Y is available only at the decoder.
We assume that (𝑿, Y) are distributed according to a joint distribution of either H0 : P𝑿𝒀 or H1 : ̅P𝑿𝒀 .
The decoder aims to decide between these hypotheses by observing the encoded version of 𝑿 and the
side information Y. Our objective is to characterize the achievable type-II error exponent under a fixed
constraint on the Type-I error.

Progress and Results :

After conducting a literature review on DHT, we noticed that previous contributions mostly assumed
that the sources 𝑿 and Y gererate independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) scalar pairs (X t , Yt )
or vector pairs (𝑿𝑡 , 𝒀𝑡 ). However, in reality, data is often non-i.i.d. To address this, we submitted a
paper to the Globcom conference that considered a more generic model for 𝑿 and Y, accounting non-
i.i.d. , non-stationary and non-ergodic models while including the previous assumptions as a particular
instance. We utilized an information-spectrum approach and achieved an error exponent using the
quantize-and-binning scheme, leading to a trade-off between binning and testing errors. We also
published our theoretical results at the French conference GRETSI. Then, we submitted a third paper
at the ISTC conference in which we specified our general error exponent to the Gilbert-Elliot (GE)
model. In this work, we proposed a method for numerically estimating the error exponent for the GE
model. We provide numerical results to evaluate the impact of the model parameters on the error
exponents and explore the tradeoff between the testing error and the binning error.

Additionally, I spent around 56 hours teaching.

Current Work:

We are currently working on analyzing separate vs. joint DHT. The sources 𝑿 and Y are encoded by
encoder1 and encoder2, respectively. In the separate DHT scenario, encoders make local decisions and
send only one bit to the decoder, which provides the final decision based on majority voting. In the
joint DHT scenario, the encoders send coded versions of 𝑿 and Y, and the decoder decides between
the hypotheses. We aim to compare these two scenarios using the Neyman-Pearson test and also
investigate the information-theoretic analysis of the achievable type-II error exponent. We are also
planning to write a journal paper.

Future Work:

Our future work includes developing practical coding schemes for DHT, which will be a focus for a
conference paper and a journal paper. Additionally, I plan to continue teaching next year.