Short Length Trellis-Based Codes for Gaussian Multiple-Access Channels

We focus on trellis-based joint code design for two-user Gaussian multiple-access channel (MAC) in the short block length regime. We propose a design methodology, provide specific code designs and report numerical performance results. We compare the performance of the jointly designed codes with the performance of the codes designed for point-to-point (P2P) channels including optimum (in terms of minimum distance) convolutional codes. Our results show that the proposed codes achieve superior performance compared to these alternatives especially in the high signal-to-noise (SNR) regime in equal power scenarios.