Capacity Bounds for the KK-User Gaussian Interference Channel

The capacity region of the $K$-user Gaussian interference channel (GIC) is a long-standing open problem and even capacity outer bounds are little known in general. A significant progress on degrees-of-freedom (DoF) analysis, a first-order capacity approximation, for the $K$-user GIC has provided new important insights into the problem of interest in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) limit. However, such capacity approximation has been observed to have some limitations in predicting the capacity at \emph{finite} SNR. In this work, we develop a new upper-bounding technique that utilizes a new type of genie signal and applies \emph{time sharing} to genie signals at $K$ receivers. Based on this technique, we derive new upper bounds on the sum capacity of the three-user GIC with constant, complex channel coefficients and then generalize to the $K$-user case to better understand sum-rate behavior at finite SNR. We also provide closed-form expressions of our upper bounds on the capacity of the $K$-user symmetric GIC easily computable for \emph{any} $K$. From the perspectives of our results, some sum-rate behavior at finite SNR is in line with the insights given by the known DoF results, while some others are not. In particular, the well-known $K/2$ DoF achievable for almost all constant real channel coefficients turns out to be not embodied as a substantial performance gain over a certain range of the cross-channel coefficient in the $K$-user symmetric real case especially for \emph{large} $K$. We further investigate the impact of phase offset between the direct-channel coefficient and the cross-channel coefficients on the sum-rate upper bound for the three-user \emph{complex} GIC. As a consequence, we aim to provide new findings that could not be predicted by the prior works on DoF of GICs.Comment: Presented in part at ISIT 2015, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory on July 2015, and revised on January 201

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