Universal relaying for the interference channel

Abstract—This paper considers a Gaussian relay-interference channel and introduces a generalized hash-and-forward relay strategy, where the relay sends out a bin index of its quantized observation, and the receivers first decode the relay quantization codeword to a list, then use the list to help decode the respective messages from the transmitters. The main advantage of the proposed approach is in a scenario where the relay observes a linear combination of the transmitted signals and broadcasts a common relay message through a digital relay link of fixed rate to help both receivers of the interference channel. We show that when compared to the achievable rates with interference treated as noise, generalized hash-and-forward can provide one bit of rate improvement for every relay bit for both users at the same time in an asymptotic regime where the background noises go down to zero. The proposed approach is universal, in contrast to the compress-and-forward or amplify-and-forward strategies which are not asymptotically optimal for multiple users simultaneously, if at all. I

Improving Third-Party Relaying for LTE-A: A Realistic Simulation Approach

In this article we propose solutions to diverse conflicts that result from the deployment of the (still immature) relay node (RN) technology in LTE-A networks. These conflicts and their possible solutions have been observed by implementing standard-compliant relay functionalities on the Vienna simulator. As an original experimental approach, we model realistic RN operation, taking into account that transmitters are not active all the time due to half-duplex RN operation. We have rearranged existing elements in the simulator in a manner that emulates RN behavior, rather than implementing a standalone brand-new component for the simulator. We also study analytically some of the issues observed in the interaction between the network and the RNs, to draw conclusions beyond simulation observation. The main observations of this paper are that: $i$) Additional time-varying interference management steps are needed, because the LTE-A standard employs a fixed time division between eNB-RN and RN-UE transmissions (typical relay capacity or throughput research models balance them optimally, which is unrealistic nowadays); $ii$) There is a trade-off between the time-division constraints of relaying and multi-user diversity; the stricter the constraints on relay scheduling are, the less flexibility schedulers have to exploit channel variation; and $iii$) Thee standard contains a variety of parameters for relaying configuration, but not all cases of interest are covered.Comment: 17 one-column pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in IEEE ICC 2014 MW

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

Dynamic Time-domain Duplexing for Self-backhauled Millimeter Wave Cellular Networks

Millimeter wave (mmW) bands between 30 and 300 GHz have attracted considerable attention for next-generation cellular networks due to vast quantities of available spectrum and the possibility of very high-dimensional antenna ar-rays. However, a key issue in these systems is range: mmW signals are extremely vulnerable to shadowing and poor high-frequency propagation. Multi-hop relaying is therefore a natural technology for such systems to improve cell range and cell edge rates without the addition of wired access points. This paper studies the problem of scheduling for a simple infrastructure cellular relay system where communication between wired base stations and User Equipment follow a hierarchical tree structure through fixed relay nodes. Such a systems builds naturally on existing cellular mmW backhaul by adding mmW in the access links. A key feature of the proposed system is that TDD duplexing selections can be made on a link-by-link basis due to directional isolation from other links. We devise an efficient, greedy algorithm for centralized scheduling that maximizes network utility by jointly optimizing the duplexing schedule and resources allocation for dense, relay-enhanced OFDMA/TDD mmW networks. The proposed algorithm can dynamically adapt to loading, channel conditions and traffic demands. Significant throughput gains and improved resource utilization offered by our algorithm over the static, globally-synchronized TDD patterns are demonstrated through simulations based on empirically-derived channel models at 28 GHz.Comment: IEEE Workshop on Next Generation Backhaul/Fronthaul Networks - BackNets 201

Joint Resource Optimization for Multicell Networks with Wireless Energy Harvesting Relays

This paper first considers a multicell network deployment where the base station (BS) of each cell communicates with its cell-edge user with the assistance of an amplify-and-forward (AF) relay node. Equipped with a power splitter and a wireless energy harvester, the self-sustaining relay scavenges radio frequency (RF) energy from the received signals to process and forward the information. Our aim is to develop a resource allocation scheme that jointly optimizes (i) BS transmit powers, (ii) received power splitting factors for energy harvesting and information processing at the relays, and (iii) relay transmit powers. In the face of strong intercell interference and limited radio resources, we formulate three highly-nonconvex problems with the objectives of sum-rate maximization, max-min throughput fairness and sum-power minimization. To solve such challenging problems, we propose to apply the successive convex approximation (SCA) approach and devise iterative algorithms based on geometric programming and difference-of-convex-functions programming. The proposed algorithms transform the nonconvex problems into a sequence of convex problems, each of which is solved very efficiently by the interior-point method. We prove that our algorithms converge to the locally optimal solutions that satisfy the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions of the original nonconvex problems. We then extend our results to the case of decode-and-forward (DF) relaying with variable timeslot durations. We show that our resource allocation solutions in this case offer better throughput than that of the AF counterpart with equal timeslot durations, albeit at a higher computational complexity. Numerical results confirm that the proposed joint optimization solutions substantially improve the network performance, compared with cases where the radio resource parameters are individually optimized

Clean relaying aided cognitive radio under the coexistence constraint

We consider the interference-mitigation based cognitive radio where the primary and secondary users can coexist at the same time and frequency bands, under the constraint that the rate of the primary user (PU) must remain the same with a single-user decoder. To meet such a coexistence constraint, the relaying from the secondary user (SU) can help the PU's transmission under the interference from the SU. However, the relayed signal in the known dirty paper coding (DPC) based scheme is interfered by the SU's signal, and is not "clean". In this paper, under the half-duplex constraints, we propose two new transmission schemes aided by the clean relaying from the SU's transmitter and receiver without interference from the SU. We name them as the clean transmitter relaying (CT) and clean transmitter-receiver relaying (CTR) aided cognitive radio, respectively. The rate and multiplexing gain performances of CT and CTR in fading channels with various availabilities of the channel state information at the transmitters (CSIT) are studied. Our CT generalizes the celebrated DPC based scheme proposed previously. With full CSIT, the multiplexing gain of the CTR is proved to be better (or no less) than that of the previous DPC based schemes. This is because the silent period for decoding the PU's messages for the DPC may not be necessary in the CTR. With only the statistics of CSIT, we further prove that the CTR outperforms the rate performance of the previous scheme in fast Rayleigh fading channels. The numerical examples also show that in a large class of channels, the proposed CT and CTR provide significant rate gains over the previous scheme with small complexity penalties.Comment: 30 page