Source correlation in a K-out-of-M multiple-access channel

A K-out-of-M multiple-access channel is a mathematical model for transmission of information between a large number of potential transmitters and one receiver, where at any transmission interval only a (usually small) number of transmitters are actively transmitting their messages. We study the problem of matching between correlated information sources and a K-out-of-M multiple-access channel. We show that by employing the correlation between the information sources and using a two-step coding scheme better results can be achieved compared to separate source and channel coding. A coding and decoding scheme is described and sufficient conditions for reliable transmission of the correlated information sources via the K-out-of-M multiple-access channel, based on this scheme are obtained