Rate Splitting for MIMO Wireless Networks: A Promising PHY-Layer Strategy for LTE Evolution

MIMO processing plays a central part towards the recent increase in spectral and energy efficiencies of wireless networks. MIMO has grown beyond the original point-to-point channel and nowadays refers to a diverse range of centralized and distributed deployments. The fundamental bottleneck towards enormous spectral and energy efficiency benefits in multiuser MIMO networks lies in a huge demand for accurate channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). This has become increasingly difficult to satisfy due to the increasing number of antennas and access points in next generation wireless networks relying on dense heterogeneous networks and transmitters equipped with a large number of antennas. CSIT inaccuracy results in a multi-user interference problem that is the primary bottleneck of MIMO wireless networks. Looking backward, the problem has been to strive to apply techniques designed for perfect CSIT to scenarios with imperfect CSIT. In this paper, we depart from this conventional approach and introduce the readers to a promising strategy based on rate-splitting. Rate-splitting relies on the transmission of common and private messages and is shown to provide significant benefits in terms of spectral and energy efficiencies, reliability and CSI feedback overhead reduction over conventional strategies used in LTE-A and exclusively relying on private message transmissions. Open problems, impact on standard specifications and operational challenges are also discussed.Comment: accepted to IEEE Communication Magazine, special issue on LTE Evolutio

Incremental Relaying for the Gaussian Interference Channel with a Degraded Broadcasting Relay

This paper studies incremental relay strategies for a two-user Gaussian relay-interference channel with an in-band-reception and out-of-band-transmission relay, where the link between the relay and the two receivers is modelled as a degraded broadcast channel. It is shown that generalized hash-and-forward (GHF) can achieve the capacity region of this channel to within a constant number of bits in a certain weak relay regime, where the transmitter-to-relay link gains are not unboundedly stronger than the interference links between the transmitters and the receivers. The GHF relaying strategy is ideally suited for the broadcasting relay because it can be implemented in an incremental fashion, i.e., the relay message to one receiver is a degraded version of the message to the other receiver. A generalized-degree-of-freedom (GDoF) analysis in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime reveals that in the symmetric channel setting, each common relay bit can improve the sum rate roughly by either one bit or two bits asymptotically depending on the operating regime, and the rate gain can be interpreted as coming solely from the improvement of the common message rates, or alternatively in the very weak interference regime as solely coming from the rate improvement of the private messages. Further, this paper studies an asymmetric case in which the relay has only a single single link to one of the destinations. It is shown that with only one relay-destination link, the approximate capacity region can be established for a larger regime of channel parameters. Further, from a GDoF point of view, the sum-capacity gain due to the relay can now be thought as coming from either signal relaying only, or interference forwarding only.Comment: To appear in IEEE Trans. on Inf. Theor

Rate splitting in MIMO RIS-assisted systems with hardware impairments and improper signaling

In this paper, we propose an optimization framework for rate splitting (RS) techniques in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted systems, possibly with I/Q imbalance (IQI). This framework can be applied to any optimization problem in which the objective and/or constraints are linear functions of the rates and/or transmit covariance matrices. Such problems include minimum-weighted and weighted-sum rate maximization, total power minimization for a target rate, minimum-weighted energy efficiency (EE) and global EE maximization. The framework may be applied to any interference-limited system with hardware impairments. For the sake of illustration, we consider a multicell MIMO RIS-assisted broadcast channel (BC) in which the base stations (BSs) and/or the users may suffer from IQI. Since IQI generates improper noise, we consider improper Gaussian signaling (IGS) as an interference-management technique that can additionally compensate for IQI. We show that RS when combined with IGS can substantially improve the spectral and energy efficiency of overloaded networks (i.e., when the number of users per cell is larger than the number of transmit/receive antennas).The work of Ignacio Santamaria has been partly supported by the project ADELE PID2019-104958RB-C43, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. The work of Eduard Jorswieck was supported in part by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Germany) in the program of “Souver¨an. Digital. Vernetzt.” joint project 6G-RIC, project identification number: 16KISK020K and 16KISK031

Constellation design for future communication systems: a comprehensive survey

[EN] The choice of modulation schemes is a fundamental building block of wireless communication systems. As a key component of physical layer design, they critically impact the expected communication capacity and wireless signal robustness. Their design is also critical for the successful roll-out of wireless standards that require a compromise between performance, efficiency, latency, and hardware requirements. This paper presents a survey of constellation design strategies and associated outcomes for wireless communication systems. The survey discusses their performance and complexity to address the need for some desirable properties, including consistency, channel capacity, system performance, required demapping architecture, flexibility, and independence. Existing approaches for constellation designs are investigated using appropriate metrics and categorized based on their theoretical algorithm design. Next, their application to different communication standards is analyzed in context, aiming at distilling general guidelines applicable to the wireless building block design. Finally, the survey provides a discussion on design directions for future communication system standardization processes.This work was supported in part by the Basque Government under Grant IT1234-19, in part by the PREDOC under Program PRE_2020_2_0105, and in part by the Spanish Government through the Project PHANTOM (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) under Gran

Principles of Physical Layer Security in Multiuser Wireless Networks: A Survey

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the domain of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks. The essential premise of physical-layer security is to enable the exchange of confidential messages over a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers without relying on higher-layer encryption. This can be achieved primarily in two ways: without the need for a secret key by intelligently designing transmit coding strategies, or by exploiting the wireless communication medium to develop secret keys over public channels. The survey begins with an overview of the foundations dating back to the pioneering work of Shannon and Wyner on information-theoretic security. We then describe the evolution of secure transmission strategies from point-to-point channels to multiple-antenna systems, followed by generalizations to multiuser broadcast, multiple-access, interference, and relay networks. Secret-key generation and establishment protocols based on physical layer mechanisms are subsequently covered. Approaches for secrecy based on channel coding design are then examined, along with a description of inter-disciplinary approaches based on game theory and stochastic geometry. The associated problem of physical-layer message authentication is also introduced briefly. The survey concludes with observations on potential research directions in this area.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 303 refs. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1303.1609 by other authors. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 201

Interference Exploitation via Symbol-Level Precoding: Overview, State-of-the-Art and Future Directions

Interference is traditionally viewed as a performance limiting factor in wireless communication systems, which is to be minimized or mitigated. Nevertheless, a recent line of work has shown that by manipulating the interfering signals such that they add up constructively at the receiver side, known interference can be made beneficial and further improve the system performance in a variety of wireless scenarios, achieved by symbol-level precoding (SLP). This paper aims to provide a tutorial on interference exploitation techniques from the perspective of precoding design in a multi-antenna wireless communication system, by beginning with the classification of constructive interference (CI) and destructive interference (DI). The definition for CI is presented and the corresponding mathematical characterization is formulated for popular modulation types, based on which optimization-based precoding techniques are discussed. In addition, the extension of CI precoding to other application scenarios as well as for hardware efficiency is also described. Proof-of-concept testbeds are demonstrated for the potential practical implementation of CI precoding, and finally a list of open problems and practical challenges are presented to inspire and motivate further research directions in this area