Distributed Joint Source-Channel Coding on a Multiple Access Channel with Side Information

Abstract: We consider the problem of transmission of several distributed sources over a multiple access channel (MAC) with side information at the sources and the decoder. Source-channel separation does not hold for this channel. Sufficient conditions are provided for transmission of sources with a given distortion. The source and/or the channel could have continuous alphabets (thus Gaussian sources and Gaussian MACs are special cases). Various previous results are obtained as special cases. We also provide several good joint source-channel coding schemes for a discrete/continuous source and discrete/continuous alphabet channel. Channels with feedback and fading are also considered. Keywords: Multiple access channel, side information, lossy joint source-channel coding, channels with feedback, fading channels.