We consider coding for transmission of a source through a channel without error when the receiver has side information about the source. We show that separate source and channel coding is asymptotically suboptimal in general. By contrast, in the case of vanishingly small probability of error, separate source and channel coding is known to be asymptotically optimal. For the zero-error case, we show further that the joint coding gain can in fact be unbounded. Since separate coding simplifies code design and use, we also derive conditions on sources and channels for the optimality of separate coding.
Using properties of the Lovász theta function, Nayak et al. REF later showed that separate source and channel coding is asymptotically suboptimal in general for the problem of designing codes for zero-error transmission of a source through a channel when the receiver has side information about the source.
Zero-error source-channel coding with side-information
IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory
Computer Science