A digital interface for Gaussian relay and interference networks: Lifting codes from the discrete superposition model

For every Gaussian network, there exists a corresponding deterministic network called the discrete superposition network. We show that this discrete superposition network provides a near-optimal digital interface for operating a class consisting of many Gaussian networks in the sense that any code for the discrete superposition network can be naturally lifted to a corresponding code for the Gaussian network, while achieving a rate that is no more than a constant number of bits lesser than the rate it achieves for the discrete superposition network. This constant depends only on the number of nodes in the network and not on the channel gains or SNR. Moreover the capacities of the two networks are within a constant of each other, again independent of channel gains and SNR. We show that the class of Gaussian networks for which this interface property holds includes relay networks with a single source-destination pair, interference networks, multicast networks, and the counterparts of these networks with multiple transmit and receive antennas. The code for the Gaussian relay network can be obtained from any code for the discrete superposition network simply by pruning it. This lifting scheme establishes that the superposition model can indeed potentially serve as a strong surrogate for designing codes for Gaussian relay networks. We present similar results for the K x K Gaussian interference network, MIMO Gaussian interference networks, MIMO Gaussian relay networks, and multicast networks, with the constant gap depending additionally on the number of antennas in case of MIMO networks.Comment: Final versio

Integer-Forcing Source Coding

Integer-Forcing (IF) is a new framework, based on compute-and-forward, for decoding multiple integer linear combinations from the output of a Gaussian multiple-input multiple-output channel. This work applies the IF approach to arrive at a new low-complexity scheme, IF source coding, for distributed lossy compression of correlated Gaussian sources under a minimum mean squared error distortion measure. All encoders use the same nested lattice codebook. Each encoder quantizes its observation using the fine lattice as a quantizer and reduces the result modulo the coarse lattice, which plays the role of binning. Rather than directly recovering the individual quantized signals, the decoder first recovers a full-rank set of judiciously chosen integer linear combinations of the quantized signals, and then inverts it. In general, the linear combinations have smaller average powers than the original signals. This allows to increase the density of the coarse lattice, which in turn translates to smaller compression rates. We also propose and analyze a one-shot version of IF source coding, that is simple enough to potentially lead to a new design principle for analog-to-digital converters that can exploit spatial correlations between the sampled signals.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

A digital interface for Gaussian relay networks: lifting codes from the discrete superposition model to Gaussian relay networks

For every Gaussian relay network with a single source-destination pair, it is known that there exists a corresponding deterministic network called the discrete superposition network that approximates its capacity uniformly over all SNR's to within a bounded number of bits. The next step in this program of rigorous approximation is to determine whether coding schemes for discrete superposition models can be lifted to Gaussian relay networks with a bounded rate loss independent of SNR. We establish precisely this property and show that the superposition model can thus serve as a strong surrogate for designing codes for Gaussian relay networks. We show that a code for a Gaussian relay network, with a single source-destination pair and multiple relay nodes, can be designed from any code for the corresponding discrete superposition network simply by pruning it. In comparison to the rate of the discrete superposition network's code, the rate of the Gaussian network's code only reduces at most by a constant that is a function only of the number of nodes in the network and independent of channel gains. This result is also applicable for coding schemes for MIMO Gaussian relay networks, with the reduction depending additionally on the number of antennas. Hence, the discrete superposition model can serve as a digital interface for operating Gaussian relay networks.Comment: 5 pages, 2010 IEEE Information Theory Workshop, Cair