Code design for joint decoding of correlated sources using algebraic network coding over AWGN channels

We consider the problem of joint decoding of signals transmitted from two correlated sources at a destination. In order to achieve high spectral efficiency at a high range of the channel signal-to-noise power (SNR), a high transmission rate is required. In this paper, we design a class of codes for joint-decoding by exploiting bit interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) technique. Extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart analysis is used to evaluate the convergence property as well as to examine the optimality of the system. The simulation results show that the joint decoding with the designed code achieves the performance close to theoretical limits supported by the Slepian-Wolf and Shannon theorems.