403 research outputs found
Cooperative Strategies for Simultaneous and Broadcast Relay Channels
Consider the \emph{simultaneous relay channel} (SRC) which consists of a set
of relay channels where the source wishes to transmit common and private
information to each of the destinations. This problem is recognized as being
equivalent to that of sending common and private information to several
destinations in presence of helper relays where each channel outcome becomes a
branch of the \emph{broadcast relay channel} (BRC). Cooperative schemes and
capacity region for a set with two memoryless relay channels are investigated.
The proposed coding schemes, based on \emph{Decode-and-Forward} (DF) and
\emph{Compress-and-Forward} (CF) must be capable of transmitting information
simultaneously to all destinations in such set.
Depending on the quality of source-to-relay and relay-to-destination
channels, inner bounds on the capacity of the general BRC are derived. Three
cases of particular interest are considered: cooperation is based on DF
strategy for both users --referred to as DF-DF region--, cooperation is based
on CF strategy for both users --referred to as CF-CF region--, and cooperation
is based on DF strategy for one destination and CF for the other --referred to
as DF-CF region--. These results can be seen as a generalization and hence
unification of previous works. An outer-bound on the capacity of the general
BRC is also derived. Capacity results are obtained for the specific cases of
semi-degraded and degraded Gaussian simultaneous relay channels. Rates are
evaluated for Gaussian models where the source must guarantee a minimum amount
of information to both users while additional information is sent to each of
them.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures, To appear in IEEE Trans. on Information Theor
Consequences of converting graded to action potentials upon neural information coding and energy efficiency
Information is encoded in neural circuits using both graded and action potentials, converting between them within single neurons and successive processing layers. This conversion is accompanied by information loss and a drop in energy efficiency. We investigate the biophysical causes of this loss of information and efficiency by comparing spiking neuron models, containing stochastic voltage-gated Na+ and K+ channels, with generator potential and graded potential models lacking voltage-gated Na+ channels. We identify three causes of information loss in the generator potential that are the by-product of action potential generation: (1) the voltage-gated Na+ channels necessary for action potential generation increase intrinsic noise and (2) introduce non-linearities, and (3) the finite duration of the action potential creates a ‘footprint’ in the generator potential that obscures incoming signals. These three processes reduce information rates by ~50% in generator potentials, to ~3 times that of spike trains. Both generator potentials and graded potentials consume almost an order of magnitude less energy per second than spike trains. Because of the lower information rates of generator potentials they are substantially less energy efficient than graded potentials. However, both are an order of magnitude more efficient than spike trains due to the higher energy costs and low information content of spikes, emphasizing that there is a two-fold cost of converting analogue to digital; information loss and cost inflation
Bayesian Foundations of Channel Estimation for Smart Radios
International audienceIn this paper, we revisit the philosophical foundations of the field of channel estimation. Our main intention is to come up with a partial answer to the question: ``given some available sensed signals, how should cognitive radios ideally perform channel estimation?''. We specifically introduce a general framework to provide optimal channel estimates under any prior knowledge at the sensing device. Our discussion is articulated as a top-down approach, introducing successively (i) a discussion on the philosophical foundations of channel estimation as a simplification means for the general problem of wireless detection, (ii) an information theoretically optimal approach to channel detection assuming the sensing device has infinite memory, and (iii) a derived optimal approach when limited memory size is accounted for. The key mathematical tools used in this discussion emerge from Bayesian probability theory and are known as the maximum entropy principle and the minimum update principle. Derivations are carried out for the particular case of channel estimation in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. While some theoretical results will be proven to match already known techniques, such as Kalman filters, another set of novel results will be shown by simulations to perform better than known channel estimation schemes
- …