An information-spectrum approach to joint source-channel coding

Abstract

Given a general source $\sV=\{V^n\}\noi$ with {\em countably infinite} source alphabet and a general channel $\sW=\{W^n\}\noi$ with arbitrary {\em abstract} channel input and output alphabets, we study the joint source-channel coding problem from the information-spectrum point of view. First, we generalize Feinstein's lemma (direct part) and Verd\'u-Han's lemma (converse part) so as to be applicable to the general joint source-channel coding problem. Based on these lemmas, we establish a sufficient condition as well as a necessary condition for the source $\sV$ to be reliably transmissible over the channel $\sW$ with asymptotically vanishing probability of error. It is shown that our sufficient condition coincides with the sufficient condition derived by Vembu, Verd\'u and Steinberg, whereas our necessary condition is much stronger than the necessary condition derived by them. Actually, our necessary condition coincide with our sufficient condition if we disregard some asymptotically vanishing terms appearing in those conditions. Also, it is shown that {\em Separation Theorem} in the generalized sense always holds. In addition, we demonstrate a sufficient condition as well as a necessary condition for the $\vep$-transmissibility ($0\le \vep <1$). Finally, the separation theorem of the traditional standard form is shown to hold for the class of sources and channels that satisfy the (semi-) strong converse property.