Ergodic Interference Alignment

This paper develops a new communication strategy, ergodic interference alignment, for the K-user interference channel with time-varying fading. At any particular time, each receiver will see a superposition of the transmitted signals plus noise. The standard approach to such a scenario results in each transmitter-receiver pair achieving a rate proportional to 1/K its interference-free ergodic capacity. However, given two well-chosen time indices, the channel coefficients from interfering users can be made to exactly cancel. By adding up these two observations, each receiver can obtain its desired signal without any interference. If the channel gains have independent, uniform phases, this technique allows each user to achieve at least 1/2 its interference-free ergodic capacity at any signal-to-noise ratio. Prior interference alignment techniques were only able to attain this performance as the signal-to-noise ratio tended to infinity. Extensions are given for the case where each receiver wants a message from more than one transmitter as well as the "X channel" case (with two receivers) where each transmitter has an independent message for each receiver. Finally, it is shown how to generalize this strategy beyond Gaussian channel models. For a class of finite field interference channels, this approach yields the ergodic capacity region.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure, To appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Interference Mitigation in Large Random Wireless Networks

A central problem in the operation of large wireless networks is how to deal with interference -- the unwanted signals being sent by transmitters that a receiver is not interested in. This thesis looks at ways of combating such interference. In Chapters 1 and 2, we outline the necessary information and communication theory background, including the concept of capacity. We also include an overview of a new set of schemes for dealing with interference known as interference alignment, paying special attention to a channel-state-based strategy called ergodic interference alignment. In Chapter 3, we consider the operation of large regular and random networks by treating interference as background noise. We consider the local performance of a single node, and the global performance of a very large network. In Chapter 4, we use ergodic interference alignment to derive the asymptotic sum-capacity of large random dense networks. These networks are derived from a physical model of node placement where signal strength decays over the distance between transmitters and receivers. (See also arXiv:1002.0235 and arXiv:0907.5165.) In Chapter 5, we look at methods of reducing the long time delays incurred by ergodic interference alignment. We analyse the tradeoff between reducing delay and lowering the communication rate. (See also arXiv:1004.0208.) In Chapter 6, we outline a problem that is equivalent to the problem of pooled group testing for defective items. We then present some new work that uses information theoretic techniques to attack group testing. We introduce for the first time the concept of the group testing channel, which allows for modelling of a wide range of statistical error models for testing. We derive new results on the number of tests required to accurately detect defective items, including when using sequential `adaptive' tests.Comment: PhD thesis, University of Bristol, 201

The Ergodic Capacity of Phase-Fading Interference Networks

We identify the role of equal strength interference links as bottlenecks on the ergodic sum capacity of a $K$ user phase-fading interference network, i.e., an interference network where the fading process is restricted primarily to independent and uniform phase variations while the channel magnitudes are held fixed across time. It is shown that even though there are $K(K-1)$ cross-links, only about $K/2$ disjoint and equal strength interference links suffice to determine the capacity of the network regardless of the strengths of the rest of the cross channels. This scenario is called a \emph{minimal bottleneck state}. It is shown that ergodic interference alignment is capacity optimal for a network in a minimal bottleneck state. The results are applied to large networks. It is shown that large networks are close to bottleneck states with a high probability, so that ergodic interference alignment is close to optimal for large networks. Limitations of the notion of bottleneck states are also highlighted for channels where both the phase and the magnitudes vary with time. It is shown through an example that for these channels, joint coding across different bottleneck states makes it possible to circumvent the capacity bottlenecks.Comment: 19 page

Delay-rate tradeoff in ergodic interference alignment

Ergodic interference alignment, as introduced by Nazer et al (NGJV), is a technique that allows high-rate communication in n-user interference networks with fast fading. It works by splitting communication across a pair of fading matrices. However, it comes with the overhead of a long time delay until matchable matrices occur: the delay is q^n^2 for field size q. In this paper, we outline two new families of schemes, called JAP and JAP-B, that reduce the expected delay, sometimes at the cost of a reduction in rate from the NGJV scheme. In particular, we give examples of good schemes for networks with few users, and show that in large n-user networks, the delay scales like q^T, where T is quadratic in n for a constant per-user rate and T is constant for a constant sum-rate. We also show that half the single-user rate can be achieved while reducing NGJV's delay from q^n^2 to q^(n-1)(n-2). This extended version includes complete proofs and more details of good schemes for small n.Comment: Extended version of a paper presented at the 2012 International Symposium on Information Theory. 7 pages, 1 figur

Hybrid Channel Pre-Inversion and Interference Alignment Strategies

In this paper we consider strategies for MIMO interference channels which combine the notions of interference alignment and channel pre-inversion. Users collaborate to form data-sharing groups, enabling them to clear interference within a group, while interference alignment is employed to clear interference between groups. To improve the capacity of our schemes at finite SNR, we propose that the groups of users invert their subchannel using a regularized Tikhonov inverse. We provide a new sleeker derivation of the optimal Tikhonov parameter, and use random matrix theory to provide an explicit formula for the SINR as the size of the system increases, which we believe is a new result. For every possible grouping of K = 4 users each with N = 5 antennas, we completely classify the degrees of freedom available to each user when using such hybrid schemes, and construct explicit interference alignment strategies which maximize the sum DoF. Lastly, we provide simulation results which compute the ergodic capacity of such schemes.Comment: Submitted to ICC 201

Maximum-rate Transmission with Improved Diversity Gain for Interference Networks

Interference alignment (IA) was shown effective for interference management to improve transmission rate in terms of the degree of freedom (DoF) gain. On the other hand, orthogonal space-time block codes (STBCs) were widely used in point-to-point multi-antenna channels to enhance transmission reliability in terms of the diversity gain. In this paper, we connect these two ideas, i.e., IA and space-time block coding, to improve the designs of alignment precoders for multi-user networks. Specifically, we consider the use of Alamouti codes for IA because of its rate-one transmission and achievability of full diversity in point-to-point systems. The Alamouti codes protect the desired link by introducing orthogonality between the two symbols in one Alamouti codeword, and create alignment at the interfering receiver. We show that the proposed alignment methods can maintain the maximum DoF gain and improve the ergodic mutual information in the long-term regime, while increasing the diversity gain to 2 in the short-term regime. The presented examples of interference networks have two antennas at each node and include the two-user X channel, the interferring multi-access channel (IMAC), and the interferring broadcast channel (IBC).Comment: submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Delay-rate tradeoff for ergodic interference alignment in the Gaussian case

In interference alignment, users sharing a wireless channel are each able to achieve data rates of up to half of the non-interfering channel capacity, no matter the number of users. In an ergodic setting, this is achieved by pairing complementary channel realizations in order to amplify signals and cancel interference. However, this scheme has the possibility for large delays in decoding message symbols. We show that delay can be mitigated by using outputs from potentially more than two channel realizations, although data rate may be reduced. We further demonstrate the tradeoff between rate and delay via a time-sharing strategy. Our analysis considers Gaussian channels; an extension to finite field channels is also possible.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, presented at 48th Allerton Conference on Communication Control and Computing, 2010. Includes appendix detailing Markov chain analysi

Channel Aided Interference Alignment

Interference alignment (IA) techniques mostly attain their degrees of freedom (DoF) benefits as the number of channel extensions tends to infinity. Intuitively, the more interfering signals that need to be aligned, the larger the number of dimensions needed to align them. This requirement poses a major challenge for IA in practical systems. This work evaluates the necessary and sufficient conditions on channel structure of a fully connected interference network with time-varying fading to make perfect IA feasible within limited number of channel extensions. We propose a method based on the obtained conditions on the channel structure to achieve perfect IA. For the case of $3$ user interference channel, it is shown that only one condition on channel coefficients is required to make perfect IA feasible at all receivers. IA feasibility literature have mainly focused on network topology so far. In contrast, derived channel aiding conditions in this work can be considered as the perfect IA feasibility conditions on channel structure.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0901.4379 by other author