Robust precoder design for frequency selective interference channels

Interference Alignment in Multi-user MIMO Systems

Interference alignment (IA) with symbol extensions in the quasi-static flat-fading K-user multipleinput multiple-output (MIMO) interference channel (IC) is considered in this paper. In general, long symbol extensions are required to achieve the optimal fractional degrees of freedom (DOF). However, long symbol extensions over orthogonal dimensions produce structured (diagonal or block diagonal) channel matrices from transmitters to receivers. Most of existing approaches are limited in cases where the channels have some special structures, because they align the interference without preserving the dimensionality of the desired signal explicitly. To overcome this common drawback of most existing IA algorithms, two novel iterative algorithms for IA with symbol extensions are proposed. The first algorithm designs transceivers for IA based on the mean square error (MSE) criterion which minimizes the total MSE of the system while preserving the dimensionality of the desired signal. The novel IA algorithm is a constrained optimization problem which can be solved by Lagrangian method. Its convergence is proven as well. Utilizing the reciprocity of alignment, the second algorithm is proposed based on the maximization of the multidimensional case of the generalized Rayleigh Quotient. It maximizes each receiver’s signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) while preserving the dimensionality of the desired signal. In simulation results, we show the superiority of the proposed algorithms in terms of four aspects, i.e., average sum rate, the fraction of the interfering signal power in the desired signal subspace, bit error rate (BER) and the relative power of the weakest desired data stream.

This paper presents a new Interference Alignment (IA) scheme for K-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Interference Channel (IC) based on two metaheuristics, namely Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) Algorithm. Tackling interference is an essential issue in wireless communications to which Interference Alignment (IA) provides a promising solution. However, IA still lacks of explicit and straightforward design procedures. In fact, most of IA procedures aim to minimize a certain Interference Leakage (IL) which measures the effect of the interference on the network, this results in complex optimization tasks involving a large amount of decision variables, together with a problem of convergence of the IA solutions. In this paper the IA optimization is performed using PSO, ABC and their cooperative counterparts, more suitable for large scale optimization. A comparison between the four algorithms is also carried out. The cooperative proposed approaches seem to be promising.

Interference alignment is a novel technique that aligns interference in each receiver using half of the signal space and leaving the other half for the desired signal, independent of the number of users that share the channel. Most of the research focuses on the channel’s capacity, degrees of freedom or throughput. In this paper we work with the error probability. For this purpose, we consider the pairwise error probability using a particle swarm optimization to optimize the precoders of a three-user interference channel with interference alignment. Simulations show that using this technique improves the performance of the three users when optimized jointly by at least 15dB SNR at a 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">−1</sup> BER for the first user compared to the one proposed by Cadambe and Jafar, and at least 5dB SNR at a 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">−2</sup> BER when optimizing the precoder for user one only compared to user one when the three users are optimized jointly.

In this paper we analyze a multiple-input-multiple-output interference channel where nodes randomly distributed on a plane utilize interference alignment to reduce the point-to-point outage. We model the spatial distribution of the nodes as a spatial Poisson cluster point process with equal sized clusters. Each cluster uses intra-cluster interference alignment to suppress interference. We link the accuracy of channel state information to the distance between the nodes, i.e., for a fixed SNR, the quality of CSI degrades with increasing distance. Accounting for the inter-cluster unaligned interference, we compare intra-cluster interference alignment with open-loop spatial multiplexing. In our analysis we find common system setups where the benefits of using interference alignment over spatial multiplexing degrade the most due to the imperfect channel state information.

In this paper, we present uplink interference alignment (IA) schemes for two-cell multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) channels. Assuming that each cell has $K$ interfering users, we propose an IA scheme for the full interference channel (FIC) and derive the achievable degrees of freedom (DOFs). The proposed scheme is extended to a two-cell Z-interference channel (ZIC), where only one of the two cells is subject to interference. The achievable DOF for the two-cell ZIC channel is also derived, and it is compared with that of the FIC with the IA and that of the conventional orthogonal scheme based on numerical results.

This paper proposes a new strategy combining interference alignment (IA) and rate splitting for a three user interference channel with a cognitive transmitter. Although a half of available dimensions are sacrificed to align interference signals from other users in conventional IA, the proposed scheme recycles the sacrificed dimensions with the help of a cognitive transmitter. The achievable rate region and generalized degrees of freedom are derived. Compared with conventional IA, the proposed scheme improves achievable rate and generalized degrees of freedom.

In recent years, several experimental studies have come out to validate the theoretical findings of interference alignment (IA), but only a handful of studies have focused on blind interference alignment. Unlike IA and other interference mitigation techniques, blind IA does not require channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). The key insight is that the transmitter uses the knowledge of channel coherence intervals and receivers utilize reconfigurable antennas to create channel fluctuations exploited by the transmitter. In this work, we present a novel experimental evaluation of a reconfigurable antenna system for achieving blind IA. We present a blind IA technique based on reconfigurable antennas for a 2-user multipleinput single-output (MISO) broadcast channel implemented on a software defined radio platform where each of the receivers is equipped with a reconfigurable antenna. We further compare this blind IA implementation with traditional TDMA scheme for benchmarking purposes. We show that the achievable rates for blind IA can be realized in practice using measured channels under practical channel conditions. Additionally, the average error vector magnitude and bit error rate (BER) performances are evaluated.

This paper proposes an Interference Alignment (IA) scheme in two-user downlink frequency selective broadcasting channels, referred to as semi-blind interference alignment (semi-BIA). Based on the frequency selectivity structure, interference can be aligned at users without precise channel coefficients at the Base Station (BS) nor reconfigurable antennas at users. Compared with traditional interference control schemes, for example, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), the proposed scheme can obtain more degrees of freedom (DoF), which means the overall throughput is improved. Besides, this semi-BIA scheme can also apply to X channels with two single-antenna transmitters and two single-antenna receivers. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme performs well in terms of achievable data rate and bit error rate (BER) evaluation.

Recent research shows that K user time-varying interference channel is capable of achieving K/2 degrees of freedom based on the idea of interference alignment. In multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) interference channels, appropriate transmit precoder design plays a pivotal role in efficiently suppressing the co-channel interference. In this paper, we propose a generalized precoder design forMIMO interference channels with the aid of interference alignment. Specifically, we consider the precoder design for both symmetric systemwhere each of the transmit and receive nodes is equipped with the same number of antennas, and asymmetric system where the number of antennas at transmit node exceeds its counterpart at receive node. As demonstrated by the simulation results, our proposed precoder design is capable of significantly improving the system sum capacity.

Interference alignment (IA) is a transmission strategy that attempts to exploit all degrees of freedom available at the transmitter or at the receiver in a multiuser channel. This paper proposes a new scheme named channel aided interference alignment. It makes use of the channel structure beside the linear interference alignment schemes to achieve the optimum degrees of freedom in a K user interference channel. In case the channel matrix does meet the specified structure, the proposed scheme achieves the optimum degrees of freedom at a finite signal to noise ratio and by using limited number of channel realizations; it turns to the usual linear vector interference alignment schemes otherwise. For the case of 3 user interference channel, it would be shown that if only one of interfering channel coeficients can be designed to a specific value, interferenfce would be aligned perfectly at all the receivers.

Our work addresses the single-input single-output interference channel. The goal is to show that although interference alignment is suboptimal in the finite power region, it is able to achieve a significant overall throughput. We investigate the interference alignment scheme proposed by Choi et al. (IEEE Commun. Lett. 13(11): 847-849, 2009), which achieves a higher multiplexing gain at any given signal dimension than the scheme proposed by Cadambe and Jafar (IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory 54(8), 2008). Then, we try to modify the IA design in order to achieve enhanced sum-rate performance in the practical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region. Firstly, we introduce a way to optimize the precoding subspaces at all transmitters, exploiting the fact that channel matrices in the interference model of a single-input single-output channel are diagonal. Secondly, we propose to optimize jointly the set of precoder bases within their associated precoding subspaces. To this end, we combine each precoder with a new combination precoder, and this latter seeks the optimal basis that maximizes the network sum rate. We also introduce an improved closed-form interference alignment scheme that performs close to the other proposed schemes.

We show that the three-user M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> × M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</sub> Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) interference channel where each transmitter is equipped with M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> antennas and each receiver is equipped with M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</sub> antennas has (M) d(M, N) = <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Δ</sup> min (M/2-1/κ, N/2+1/κ) degrees of freedom (DoF) normalized by time, frequency, and space dimensions, where = <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Δ</sup> min(M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> , M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</sub> ), N = <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Δ</sup> max(M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> , M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</sub> ), κ = <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Δ</sup> ⌈M/N-M⌉. While the DoF outer bound of d(M, N) is established for every M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> , M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</sub> value, the achievability of d(M, N) DoF is established in general subject to a normalization with respect to spatial extensions, i.e., the scaling of the number of antennas at all nodes. In particular, we show that qd(M, N) DoF are achievable for the three-user qMT × qMR MIMO interference channel, for some positive integer q, which may be seen as a spatial extension factor. q is the scaling factor needed to make the value qd(M, N) an integer. Given spatial extensions, the achievability relies only on linear beamforming based interference alignment schemes and requires neither channel extensions nor channel variations in time or frequency. In the absence of spatial extensions, it is shown through examples how essentially the same interference alignment scheme may be applied over time-extensions over either constant or time-varying channels. The central new insight to emerge from this paper is the notion of subspace alignment chains as the DoF bottlenecks. The subspace alignment chains are instrumental both in identifying the extra dimensions to be provided by a genie to a receiver for the DoF outer bound, as well as in the construction of the optimal interference alignment schemes. The DoF value d(M, N) is a piecewise linear function of M, N, with either M or N being the bottleneck within each linear segment, whereas the other value contains some redundancy, i.e., it can be reduced without reducing the DoF. The corner points of these piecewise linear segments correspond to two sets, A={1/2, 2/3, 3/4, ...}and B={1/3, 3/5, 5/7, ...}. The set A contains all those values of M/N and only those values of M/N for which there is redundancy in both M and N, i.e., either can be reduced without reducing the DoF. The set B contains all those values of M/N and only those values of M/N for which there is no redundancy in either M or N, i.e., neither can be reduced without reducing the DoF. Because A and B represent settings with maximum and minimum redundancy, essentially they are the basis for the DoF outer bounds and inner bounds, respectively. Our results settle the question of feasibility of linear interference alignment, introduced previously by Cenk et al., for the three-user M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> × M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</sub> MIMO interference channel, completely for all values of M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> , M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</sub> . In particular, we show that the linear interference alignment problem (M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> × M <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</sub> , d) <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> (as defined in previous paper by Cenk et al.) is feasible if and only if d ≤ d(M, N). With the exception of the values M/N ∈ B, and only with that exception, we show that for every M/N value there are proper systems (as defined by Cenk et al.) that are not feasible. Evidently the redundancy contained in all other values of M/N manifests itself as superfluous variables that are not discounted in the definition of proper systems, thus creating a discrepancy between proper and feasible systems. Our results show that M/N ∈ A are the only values for which there is no DoF benefit of joint processing among co-located antennas at the transmitters or receivers. This may also be seen as a consequence of the maximum redundancy in the M/N ∈ A settings.

We show that the maximization of the sum degrees-of-freedom for the static flat-fading multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference channel is equivalent to a rank constrained rank minimization problem, when the signal spaces span all available dimensions. The rank minimization corresponds to maximizing interference alignment (IA) such that interference spans the lowest dimensional subspace possible. The rank constraints account for the useful signal spaces spanning all available spatial dimensions. That way, we reformulate all IA requirements to requirements involving ranks. Then, we present a convex relaxation of the RCRM problem inspired by recent results in compressed sensing and low-rank matrix completion theory that rely on approximating rank with the nuclear norm. We show that the convex envelope of the sum of ranks of the interference matrices is the sum of their corresponding nuclear norms and introduce tractable constraints that are asymptotically equivalent to the rank constraints for the initial problem. We also show that our heuristic relaxation can be also tuned to the multi-cell interference channel. Furthermore, we experimentally show that the proposed algorithm outperforms previous approaches for finding precoding and zero-forcing matrices for interference alignment.

We consider the effective degrees of freedom (DoF) achieved by interference alignment when channel state information (CSI) is acquired by training and feedback. For a flat block- fading K × K interference channel with power P per transmitter and M antennas per node, we show that interference alignment achieves higher DoF than orthogonal transmission (e.g., TDMA) only if the channel coherence time is large and the capacity of feedback link is at least as Θ(log P). Under this condition, to maximize the effective DoF, each receiver needs to feed back CSI via (M <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> -1)log P bits per coherence interval; smaller growth rate of feedback bits will decrease the effective DoF. We also show that in the presence of training and feedback cost, K = 3 achieves the optimal DoF for a broad range of channel characteristics; with larger number of user pairs, the DoF falls short of its optimum and beyond a certain point becomes a decreasing function of K.