On the Minimum Energy of Sending Gaussian Multiterminal Sources over the Gaussian MAC

Abstract: In this work, we investigate the minimum energy of transmitting correlated sources over the Gaussian multiple-access channel (MAC). Compared to other works on joint source-channel coding, we consider the general scenario where the source and channel bandwidths are not naturally matched. In particular, we proposed the use of hybrid digital-analog coding over to improve the transmission energy efficiency. Different models of correlated sources are studied. We first consider lossless transmission of binary sources over the MAC. We then treat lossy transmission of Gaussian sources over the Gaussian MAC, including CEO sources and multiterminal sources. In all cases, we show that hybrid transmission achieves the best known energy efficiency.