Source-channel coding with multiple classes

We study a source-channel coding scheme in which source messages are assigned to classes and encoded using a channel code that depends on the class index. While each class code can be seen as a concatenation of a source code and a channel code, the overall performance improves on that of separate source-channel coding and approaches that of joint source-channel coding as the number of classes increases. The performance of this scheme is studied by means of random-coding bounds and validated by simulation of a low-complexity implementation using existing source and channel codes.