Capacity Bounds for the K -User Gaussian Interference Channel

• Published in: IEEE transactions on information theory Vol. 63; no. 10; pp. 6416 - 6439
• Main Author: Nam, Junyoung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.10.2017; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Approximation; capacity upper bounds; Codes; Coefficients; Degrees of freedom; finite SNR analysis; Interference; Interference channels; Mathematical analysis; Noise measurement; Receivers; Signal to noise ratio; Time sharing; Upper bound; Upper bounds; Wireless communication
• ISSN: 0018-9448; 1557-9654
• DOI: 10.1109/TIT.2017.2719698

The capacity region of the K-user Gaussian interference channel (GIC) is a long-standing open problem and even capacity outer bounds are little known in general. A significant progress on degrees-of-freedom (DoF) analysis, a first-order capacity approximation, for the K-user GIC has provided new important insights into the problem of interest in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) limit. However, such capacity approximation has been observed to have some limitations in predicting the capacity at finite SNR. In this paper, we develop a new upper-bounding technique that utilizes a new type of genie signal and applies time sharing to genie signals at K receivers. Based on this technique, we derive new upper bounds on the sum capacity of the three-user GIC with constant, complex channel coefficients and then generalize to the K-user case to better understand sum-rate behavior at finite SNR. We also provide closed-form expressions of our upper bounds on the capacity of the K-user symmetric GIC easily computable for any K. From the perspectives of our results, some sum-rate behavior at finite SNR is in line with the insights given by the known DoF results, while some others are not. In particular, the well-known K/2 DoF achievable for almost all constant real channel coefficients turns out to be not embodied as a substantial performance gain over a certain range of the cross-channel coefficient in the K-user symmetric real case especially for large K. We further investigate the impact of phase offset between the direct-channel coefficient and the cross-channel coefficients on the sum-rate upper bound for the three-user complex GIC. As a consequence, we aim to provide new findings that could not be predicted by the prior works on DoF of GICs.