Shannon's separation theorem states that for transmission over noisy channels, approaching channel capacity is possible with the separation of source and channel coding. Practically, the situation is different. Infinite size blocks are needed to achieve this theoretical limit. Also, time-varying channels require a different approach. This leads to many approaches for source and channel coding. This dissertation will address a joint source and channel coding that suits Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) application and applies it to packet switching networks. Following aspects of the proposed joint source and channel coding approach will be presented:

1. The design of the proposed joint source and channel coding scheme. The approach is based on a variable length coding scheme which adapts the arithmetic coding process for joint source and channel coding.

2. The protocol using this joint source and channel coding scheme in communication systems. The error recovery technique of the proposed scheme is presented. 

3. The application of the scheme and protocol. The design is applied to wireless TCP network and real-time video transmissions.

The coding scheme embeds the redundancy needed for error detection in source coding stage. The self-synchronization property of lossless compression is utilized by decoder to detect channel errors. With this approach, error detection may be delayed. The delay in detection is referred to as error propagation distance. This work analyzes the distribution of error propagation distance. The error recovery technique of this joint source and channel coding for ARQ (JARQ) protocol is analyzed. Throughput is studied using signal flow graph for both independent channel and nonindependent channels. A packet combining technique is presented which utilizes the non-uniform distribution of error propagation distance to increase the throughput.

The proposed scheme may be applied to many areas. In particular, two applications are discussed. A TCP/JARQ protocol stack is introduced and the coordination between TCP and JARQ layers is discussed to maximize system performance. By limiting the number of retransmission, the proposed scheme is applied to real-time transmission to meet timing requirement.