This paper studies the wireless two-way relay channel (TWRC), where two source nodes, S1 and S2, exchange information through an assisting relay node, R. It is assumed that R receives the sum signal from S1 and S2 in one timeslot, and then amplifies and forwards the received signal to both S1 and S2 in the next time-slot. By applying the principle of analogue network coding (ANC), each of S1 and S2 cancels the so-called "self-interference" in the received signal from R and then decodes the desired message. Assuming that S1 and S2 are each equipped with a single antenna and R with multi-antennas, this paper analyzes the capacity region of the ANC-based TWRC with linear processing (beamforming) at R. The capacity region contains all the achievable bidirectional rate-pairs of S1 and S2 under the given transmit power constraints at S1, S2, and R. We present the optimal relay beamforming structure as well as an efficient algorithm to compute the optimal beamforming matrix based on convex optimization techniques. Low-complexity suboptimal relay beamforming schemes are also presented, and their achievable rates are compared against the capacity with the optimal scheme.
Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) with centralized baseband processing is envisioned as a promising candidate for the next-generation wireless communication network. However, the joint processing gain of C-RAN is fundamentally constrained by the finite-capacity fronthaul links between the central unit (CU) where joint processing is implemented and distributed access points known as remote radio heads (RRHs). In this paper, we consider the downlink communication in a C-RAN with multi-antenna RRHs and single-antenna users, and investigate the joint RRH beamforming and user-RRH association problem to maximize the minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of all users subject to each RRH's individual fronthaul capacity constraint. The formulated problem is in general NP-hard due to the fronthaul capacity constraints and thus is difficult to be solved optimally. In this paper, we propose a new iterative method for this problem which decouples the design of beamforming and user association, where the number of users served by each RRH is iteratively reduced until the obtained beamforming and user association solution satisfies the fronthaul capacity constraints of all RRHs. A monotonic convergence is proved for the proposed algorithm, and it is shown by simulation that the algorithm achieves significant performance improvement over other heuristic solutions.
Aerial-ground interference is the main obstacle to achieving high spectral efficiency in cellular networks with both traditional terrestrial users and new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) users. Due to their strong line-of-sight (LoS) channels with the ground, UAVs could cause/suffer severe interference to/from a large number of non-associated but co-channel base stations (BSs) in their uplink/downlink communications. In this letter, we propose a new cooperative interference cancellation (CIC) scheme for the UAV's uplink communication to mitigate its strong interference to co-channel BSs, which requires only local cooperation between each co-channel BS and its adjacent helping BSs. Specifically, the helping BSs without serving any users in the UAV's communication channel quantize and forward their received signals from the UAV to their aided co-channel BS, which then processes the quantized signals jointly with its own received signal to decode its served terrestrial user's message via canceling the UAV's signal by linear/nonlinear interference cancellation techniques (ICTs). We derive the achievable rates of the proposed CIC scheme with different ICTs as a function of the UAV's transmit power and rate, and thereby unveil the conditions under which the proposed CIC scheme outperforms the existing CIC scheme based on the decode-and-forward (DF) operation of the helping BSs.
With growing popularity, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are pivotally extending conventional terrestrial Internet of Things (IoT) into the sky. To enable high-performance two-way communications of UAVs with their ground pilots/users, cellular network-connected UAV has drawn significant interests recently. Among others, an important issue is whether the existing cellular network, designed mainly for terrestrial users, is also able to effectively cover the new UAV users in the three-dimensional (3D) space for both uplink and downlink communications. Such 3D coverage analysis is challenging due to the unique air-ground channel characteristics, the resulted interference issue with terrestrial communication, and the non-uniform 3D antenna gain pattern of ground base station (GBS) in practice. Particularly, high-altitude UAV often possesses a high probability of line-of-sight (LoS) channels with a large number of GBSs, while their random binary (LoS/Non-LoS) channel states and (on/off) activities give rise to exponentially large number of discrete UAV-GBS association/interference states, rendering coverage analysis more difficult. This paper presents a new 3D system model to incorporate UAV users and proposes an analytical framework to characterize their uplink/downlink 3D coverage performance. To tackle the above exponential complexity, we introduce a generalized Poisson multinomial (GPM) distribution to model the discrete interference states, and a novel lattice approximation (LA) technique to approximate the non-lattice GPM variable and obtain the interference distribution efficiently with high accuracy. The 3D coverage analysis is validated by extensive numerical results, which also show effects of key system parameters such as cell loading factor, GBS antenna downtilt, UAV altitude and antenna beamwidth.
In this letter, we study the wireless point-to-point communication from a transmitter (Tx) to a receiver (Rx), which is jointly aided by an active intelligent reflecting surface (AIRS) and a passive IRS (PIRS). We consider two practical transmission schemes by deploying the two IRSs in different orders, namely, Tx$\rightarrow$PIRS$\rightarrow$AIRS$\rightarrow$Rx (TPAR) and Tx$\rightarrow$AIRS$\rightarrow$PIRS$\rightarrow$Rx (TAPR). Assuming line-of-sight channels, we derive the achievable rates for the two schemes by optimizing the placement of the AIRS with the location of the PIRS fixed. Our analysis shows that when the number of PIRS elements and/or the AIRS amplification power is small, the AIRS should be deployed closer to the Rx in both schemes, and TAPR outperforms TPAR with their respective optimized AIRS/PIRS placement. Simulation results validate our analysis and show the considerable performance gain achieved by the jointly optimized AIRS/PIRS deployment over the baseline double-PIRS system under the same power and IRS element budgets.
This paper considers spectrum sharing for wireless communication between a cognitive radio (CR) link and a primary radio (PR) link. It is assumed that the CR protects the PR transmission by applying the so-called interference-temperature constraint, whereby the CR is allowed to transmit regardless of the PR's on/off status provided that the resultant interference power level at the PR receiver is kept below some predefined threshold. For the fading PR and CR channels, the interference-power constraint at the PR receiver is usually one of the following two types: One is to regulate the average interference power (AIP) over all the fading states, while the other is to limit the peak interference power (PIP) at each fading state. From the CR's perspective, given the same average and peak power threshold, the AIP constraint is more favorable than the PIP counterpart because of its more flexibility for dynamically allocating transmit powers over the fading states. On the contrary, from the perspective of protecting the PR, the more restrictive PIP constraint appears at a first glance to be a better option than the AIP. Some surprisingly, this paper shows that in terms of various forms of capacity limits achievable for the PR fading channel, e.g., the ergodic and outage capacities, the AIP constraint is also superior over the PIP. This result is based upon an interesting interference diversity phenomenon, i.e., randomized interference powers over the fading states in the AIP case are more advantageous over deterministic ones in the PIP case for minimizing the resultant PR capacity losses. Therefore, the AIP constraint results in larger fading channel capacities than the PIP for both the CR and PR transmissions.
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) can bring sig-nificant performance enhancement for wireless communication systems by reconfiguring wireless channels via passive signal reflection. However, such performance improvement generally relies on the knowledge of channel state information (CSI) for IRS-associated links. Prior IRS channel estimation strategies mainly estimate IRS-cascaded channels based on the excessive pilot signals received at the users/base station (BS) with time-varying IRS reflections, which, however, are not compatible with the existing channel training/estimation protocol for cellular networks. To address this issue, we propose in this paper a new channel estimation scheme for IRS-assisted communication systems based on the received signal power measured at the user, which is practically attainable without the need of changing the current protocol. Specifically, due to the lack of signal phase information in power measurements, the autocorrelation matrix of the BS-IRS-user cascaded channel is estimated by solving equivalent matrix-rank-minimization problems. Simulation re-sults are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed channel estimation algorithm as well as the IRS passive reflection design based on the estimated channel autocorrelation matrix.
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a new promising technology that is able to reconfigure the wireless propagation channel via smart and passive signal reflection. In this paper, we investigate the capacity region of a two-user communication network with one access point (AP) aided by M IRS elements for enhancing the user-AP channels, where the IRS incurs negligible delay, thus the user-AP channels via the IRS follow the classic discrete memoryless channel model. In particular, we consider two practical IRS deployment strategies that lead to different effective channels between the users and AP, namely, the distributed deployment where the M elements form two IRSs, each deployed in the vicinity of one user, versus the centralized deployment where all the M elements are deployed in the vicinity of the AP. First, we consider the uplink multiple-access channel (MAC) and derive the capacity/achievable rate regions for both deployment strategies under different multiple access schemes. It is shown that the centralized deployment generally outperforms the distributed deployment under symmetric channel setups in terms of achievable user rates. Next, we extend the results to the downlink broadcast channel (BC) by leveraging the celebrated uplink-downlink (or MAC-BC) duality framework, and show that the superior rate performance of centralized over distributed deployment also holds. Numerical results are presented that validate our analysis, and reveal new and useful insights for optimal IRS deployment in wireless networks.
This correspondence studies the downlink transmission in a multi-cell system, where multiple base stations (BSs) each with multiple antennas cooperatively design their respective transmit beamforming vectors to optimize the overall system performance. For simplicity, it is assumed that all mobile stations (MSs) are equipped with a single antenna each, and there is one active MS in each cell at one time. Accordingly, the system of interests can be modeled by a multiple-input single-output (MISO) interference channel (IC), termed as MISO-IC, with interference treated as noise. We propose a new method to characterize different rate-tuples for active MSs on the Pareto boundary of the achievable rate region for the MISO-IC, by exploring the relationship between the MISO-IC and the cognitive radio (CR) MISO channel. We show that each Pareto-boundary rate-tuple of the MISO-IC can be achieved in a decentralized manner when each of the BSs attains its own channel capacity subject to a certain set of interference-power constraints (also known as interference-temperature constraints in the CR system) at the other MS receivers. Furthermore, we show that this result leads to a new decentralized algorithm for implementing the multi-cell cooperative downlink beamforming.
The dual use of radio signals for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) has recently drawn significant attention. To meet the practical requirement that energy receivers (ERs) operate with much higher received power than information receivers (IRs), ERs need to be deployed closer to the transmitter than IRs. However, due to the broadcast nature of wireless channels, one critical issue is that the messages sent to IRs cannot be eavesdropped by ERs, which possess better channels from the transmitter. In this paper, we address this new secrecy communication problem in a multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) SWIPT system where a multi-antenna transmitter sends information and energy simultaneously to one IR and multiple ERs, each with a single antenna. By optimizing transmit beamforming vectors and their power allocation, we maximize the weighted sum-energy transferred to ERs subject to a secrecy rate constraint for the information sent to the IR. We solve this non-convex problem optimally by reformulating it into a two-stage problem. First, we fix the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the IR and obtain the optimal beamforming solution by applying the technique of semidefinite relaxation (SDR). Then the original problem is solved by a one-dimension search over the optimal SINR value for the IR. Furthermore, two suboptimal low-complexity beamforming schemes are proposed, and their achievable (secrecy) rate-energy (R-E) regions are compared against that by the optimal scheme.
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) that enables the control of the wireless propagation environment has been looked upon as a promising technology for boosting the spectrum and energy efficiency in future wireless communication systems. Prior works on IRS are mainly based on the ideal phase shift model assuming the full signal reflection by each of the elements regardless of its phase shift, which, however, is practically difficult to realize. In contrast, we propose in this paper a practical phase shift model that captures the phase-dependent amplitude variation in the element-wise reflection coefficient. Applying this new model to an IRS-aided wireless system, we formulate a problem to maximize its achievable rate by jointly optimizing the transmit beamforming and the IRS reflect beamforming. The formulated problem is non-convex and difficult to be optimally solved in general, for which we propose a low-complexity suboptimal solution based on the alternating optimization (AO) technique. Simulation results unveil a substantial performance gain achieved by the joint beamforming optimization based on the proposed phase shift model as compared to the conventional ideal model.
