Joint Compute and Forward for the Two Way Relay Channel with Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes

We consider the design and analysis of coding schemes for the binary input two way relay channel with erasure noise. We are particularly interested in reliable physical layer network coding in which the relay performs perfect error correction prior to forwarding messages. The best known achievable rates for this problem can be achieved through either decode and forward or compute and forward relaying. We consider a decoding paradigm called joint compute and forward which we numerically show can achieve the best of these rates with a single encoder and decoder. This is accomplished by deriving the exact performance of a message passing decoder based on joint compute and forward for spatially coupled LDPC ensembles.Comment: This paper was submitted to IEEE Global Communications Conference 201

A Cooperative Network Coding Strategy for the Interference Relay Channel.

In this paper, we study an interference relay network with a satellite as relay. We propose a cooperative strategy based on physical layer network coding and superposition modulation decoding for uni-directional communications among users. The performance of our solution in terms of throughput is evaluated through capacity analysis and simulations that include practical constraints such as the lack of synchronization in time and frequency.We obtain a significant throughput gain compared to the classical time sharing case

Physical-Layer Cooperation in Coded OFDM Relaying Systems

Mobile communication systems nowadays require ever-increasing data rate and coverage of wide areas. One promising approach to achieve this goal is the application of cooperative communications enabled by introducing intermediate nodes known as relays to support the transmission between terminals. By processing and forwarding the receive message at the relays, the path-loss effect between the source and the destination is mitigated. One major limit factor for relay assisted communications is that a relay cannot transmit and receive using the same physical resources. Therefore, a half-duplex constraint is commonly assumed resulting in halved spectral efficiency. To combat this drawback, two-way relaying is introduced, where two sources exchange information with each. On the other hand, due to the physical limitation of the relays, e.g., wireless sensor nodes, it's not possible to implement multiple antennas at one relay, which prohibits the application of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques. However, when treating multiple relays as a cluster, a virtual antenna array is formed to perform MIMO techniques in a distributed manner. %This thesis aims at designing efficient one-way and two-way relaying schemes. Specifically, existing schemes from the literature are improved and new schemes are developed with the emphasis on coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmissions. Of special interest is the application of physical-layer network coding (PLNC) for two-phase two-way relaying. In this case, a network coded message is estimated from the superimposed receive signal at the relay using PLNC schemes. The schemes are investigated based on a mutual information analysis and their performance are improved by a newly proposed phase control strategy. Furthermore, performance degradation due to system asynchrony is mitigated depending on different PLNC schemes. When multiple relays are available, novel cooperation schemes allowing information exchange within the relay cluster are proposed that facilitate distributed MIMO reception and transmission. Additionally, smart signaling approaches are presented to enable the cooperation at different levels with the cooperation overhead taken into account adequately in system performance evaluation

Reliable Physical Layer Network Coding

When two or more users in a wireless network transmit simultaneously, their electromagnetic signals are linearly superimposed on the channel. As a result, a receiver that is interested in one of these signals sees the others as unwanted interference. This property of the wireless medium is typically viewed as a hindrance to reliable communication over a network. However, using a recently developed coding strategy, interference can in fact be harnessed for network coding. In a wired network, (linear) network coding refers to each intermediate node taking its received packets, computing a linear combination over a finite field, and forwarding the outcome towards the destinations. Then, given an appropriate set of linear combinations, a destination can solve for its desired packets. For certain topologies, this strategy can attain significantly higher throughputs over routing-based strategies. Reliable physical layer network coding takes this idea one step further: using judiciously chosen linear error-correcting codes, intermediate nodes in a wireless network can directly recover linear combinations of the packets from the observed noisy superpositions of transmitted signals. Starting with some simple examples, this survey explores the core ideas behind this new technique and the possibilities it offers for communication over interference-limited wireless networks.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, survey paper to appear in Proceedings of the IEE

Compute-and-Forward Relay Networks with Asynchronous, Mobile, and Delay-Sensitive Users

We consider a wireless network consisting of multiple source nodes, a set of relays and a destination node. Suppose the sources transmit their messages simultaneously to the relays and the destination aims to decode all the messages. At the physical layer, a conventional approach would be for the relay to decode the individual message one at a time while treating rest of the messages as interference. Compute-and-forward is a novel strategy which attempts to turn the situation around by treating the interference as a constructive phenomenon. In compute-and-forward, each relay attempts to directly compute a combination of the transmitted messages and then forwards it to the destination. Upon receiving the combinations of messages from the relays, the destination can recover all the messages by solving the received equations. When identical lattice codes are employed at the sources, error correction to integer combination of messages is a viable option by exploiting the algebraic structure of lattice codes. Therefore, compute-and-forward with lattice codes enables the relay to manage interference and perform error correction concurrently. It is shown that compute-and-forward exhibits substantial improvement in the achievable rate compared with other state-of-the-art schemes for medium to high signal-to-noise ratio regime. Despite several results that show the excellent performance of compute-and-forward, there are still important challenges to overcome before we can utilize compute-and- forward in practice. Some important challenges include the assumptions of \perfect timing synchronization "and \quasi-static fading", since these assumptions rarely hold in realistic wireless channels. So far, there are no conclusive answers to whether compute-and-forward can still provide substantial gains even when these assumptions are removed. When lattice codewords are misaligned and mixed up, decoding integer combination of messages is not straightforward since the linearity of lattice codes is generally not invariant to time shift. When channel exhibits time selectivity, it brings challenges to compute-and-forward since the linearity of lattice codes does not suit the time varying nature of the channel. Another challenge comes from the emerging technologies for future 5G communication, e.g., autonomous driving and virtual reality, where low-latency communication with high reliability is necessary. In this regard, powerful short channel codes with reasonable encoding/decoding complexity are indispensable. Although there are fruitful results on designing short channel codes for point-to-point communication, studies on short code design specifically for compute-and-forward are rarely found. The objective of this dissertation is threefold. First, we study compute-and-forward with timing-asynchronous users. Second, we consider the problem of compute-and- forward over block-fading channels. Finally, the problem of compute-and-forward for low-latency communication is studied. Throughout the dissertation, the research methods and proposed remedies will center around the design of lattice codes in order to facilitate the use of compute-and-forward in the presence of these challenges