Analog joint source channel coding over non-linear acoustic channels

We investigate the performance of analog joint source channel coding systems based on the use of spiral-like space filling curves for the transmission of Gaussian sources over non-linear channels, including channels of the type encountered in underwater acoustic communications. We focus on bandwidth reduction schemes where two i.i.d. samples are mapped to one channel symbol. We evaluate the theoretical limits for some of the non-linear channels and extend existing analog coding schemes to deal with the channel non-linearities, demonstrating that the system performance is very close to the theoretical limits for a wide range of signal to noise ratios.