Ivana Maric

Discrete Memoryless Interference and Broadcast Channels With Confidential Messages: Secrecy Rate Regions

We study information-theoretic security for discrete memoryless interference and broadcast channels with independent confidential messages sent to two receivers. Confidential messages are transmitted to their respective receivers while ensuring mutual information-theoretic secrecy. That is, each receiver is kept in total ignorance with respect to the message intended for the other receiver. The secrecy level is measured by the equivocation rate at the eavesdropping receiver. In this paper, we present inner and outer bounds on secrecy capacity regions for these two communication systems. The derived outer bounds have an identical mutual information expression that applies to both channel models. The difference is in the input distributions over which the expression is optimized. The inner bound rate regions are achieved by random binning techniques. For the broadcast channel, a double-binning coding scheme allows for both joint encoding and preserving of confidentiality. Furthermore, we show that, for a special case of the interference channel, referred to as the switch channel, derived bounds meet. Finally, we describe several transmission schemes for Gaussian interference channels and derive their achievable rate regions while ensuring mutual information-theoretic secrecy. An encoding scheme in which transmitters dedicate some of their power to create artificial noise is proposed and shown to outperform both time-sharing and simple multiplexed transmission of the confidential messages.

Capacity of Interference Channels With Partial Transmitter Cooperation

Capacity regions are established for several two-sender, two-receiver channels with partial transmitter cooperation. First, the capacity regions are determined for compound multiple-access channels (MACs) with common information and compound MACs with conferencing. Next, two interference channel models are considered: an interference channel with common information (ICCI) and an interference channel with unidirectional cooperation (ICUC) in which the message sent by one of the encoders is known to the other encoder. The capacity regions of both of these channels are determined when there is strong interference, i.e., the interference is such that both receivers can decode all messages with no rate penalty. The resulting capacity regions coincide with the capacity region of the compound MAC with common information.

Cooperative multihop broadcast for wireless networks

We address the minimum-energy broadcast problem under the assumption that nodes beyond the nominal range of a transmitter can collect the energy of unreliably received overheard signals. As a message is forwarded through the network, a node will have multiple opportunities to reliably receive the message by collecting energy during each retransmission. We refer to this cooperative strategy as accumulative broadcast. We seek to employ accumulative broadcast in a large scale loosely synchronized, low-power network. Therefore, we focus on distributed network layer approaches for accumulative broadcast in which loosely synchronized nodes use only local information. To further simplify the system architecture, we assume that nodes forward only reliably decoded messages. Under these assumptions, we formulate the minimum-energy accumulative broadcast problem. We present a solution employing two subproblems. First, we identify the ordering in which nodes should transmit. Second, we determine the optimum power levels for that ordering. While the second subproblem can be solved by means of linear programming, the ordering subproblem is found to be NP-complete. We devise a heuristic algorithm to find a good ordering. Simulation results show the performance of the algorithm to be close to optimum and a significant improvement over the well known BIP algorithm for constructing energy-efficient broadcast trees. We then formulate a distributed version of the accumulative broadcast algorithm that uses only local information at the nodes and has performance close to its centralized counterpart.

Bandwidth and power allocation for cooperative strategies in Gaussian relay networks

In a relay network with a single source-destination pair, we examine the achievable rates with amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying strategy. Motivated by applications in sensor networks, we consider power-constrained networks with large bandwidth resources and a large number of nodes. We show that the AF strategy does not necessarily benefit from the large available bandwidth. We characterize the optimum AF bandwidth and show that transmitting in the optimum bandwidth allows the network to operate in the linear regime where the achieved rate increases linearly with the available network power. We then present the optimum power allocation among the AF relays. The solution, which can be viewed as a form of maximum ratio combining, indicates the favorable relay positions in the network. Motivated by the large bandwidth resources we further consider a network that uses orthogonal transmissions at the nodes. While the above result for the optimum bandwidth still holds, a different set of relays should optimally be employed. In this case, the relay power solution can be viewed as a form of water-filling. The optimum AF bandwidth and the relay powers can be contrasted to the decode-and-forward (DF) solution. In a network with unconstrained bandwidth, the DF strategy will operate in the wideband regime to minimize the energy cost per information bit (S. Verdu, 2002), (O. Oyman et al., 2004). The wideband DF strategy requires again a different choice of relays; in the case of orthogonal signaling, the data should be sent through only one DF relay (I. Maric et al., 2004). Thus, in general, in a large scale network, a choice of a coding strategy goes beyond determining a coding scheme at a node; it also determines the operating bandwidth as well as the best distribution of the relay power.

On the Capacity of Interference Channels with One Cooperating Transmitter

SUMMARY Inner and outer bounds are established on the capacity region of two-sender, two-receiver interference channels (IC) where one transmitter knows both messages. The transmitter with this extra message knowledge is referred to as being cognitive. The inner bound is based on strategies that generalise prior work, and includes rate-splitting, Gel’fand–Pinsker (GP) coding and cooperative transmission. A general outer bound is based on the Nair–El Gamal outer bound for broadcast channels (BCs). A simpler bound is presented for the case in which one of the decoders can decode both messages. The bounds are evaluated and compared for Gaussian channels. Copyright

Fundamentals of dynamic frequency hopping in cellular systems

We examine techniques for increasing spectral efficiency of cellular systems by using slow frequency hopping (FH) with dynamic frequency-hop (DFH) pattern adaptation. We first present analytical results illustrating the improvements in frequency outage probabilities obtained by DFH in comparison with random frequency hopping (RFH). Next, we show simulation results comparing the performance of various DFH and RFH techniques. System performance is expressed by cumulative distribution functions of codeword error rates. Systems that we study incorporate channel coding, interleaving, antenna diversity, and power control. Analysis and simulations consider the effects of path loss, shadowing, Rayleigh fading, cochannel interference, coherence bandwidth, voice activity, and occupancy. The results indicate that systems using DFH can support substantially more users than systems using RFH.

Bandwidth and Power Allocation for Cooperative Strategies in Gaussian Relay Networks

Achievable rates with amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) cooperative strategies are examined for relay networks. Motivated by sensor network applications, power-constrained networks with large bandwidth resources and a large number of nodes are considered. It is shown that AF strategies do not necessarily benefit from the available bandwidth. Rather, transmitting in the optimum AF bandwidth allows the network to operate in the linear regime where the achieved rate increases linearly with the available network power. The optimum power allocation among the AF relays, shown to be a form of maximal ratio combining, indicates the favorable relay positions. Orthogonal node transmissions are also examined. While the same optimum bandwidth result still holds, the relay power allocation in this case can be viewed as a form of water-filling. In contrast, the DF strategy will optimally operate in the wideband regime and is shown to require a different choice of relays. Thus, in a large scale network, the choice of a coding strategy goes beyond determining a coding scheme at a node; it also determines the operating bandwidth, as well as the set of relays and best distribution of the relay power.

On the capacity of the interference channel with a relay

Capacity gains due to relaying in wireless networks with multiple source-destination pairs are analyzed. A two- source, two-receiver network with the relay is considered. The focus is on the scenario in which, due to channel conditions, the relay can observe the signal from only one source. The relay can thus help the intended receiver of this message, via message forwarding, to decode it. In addition, the relay can simultaneously help the unintended receiver subtract the interference associated with this message. We call the latter strategy interference forwarding. An achievable rate region employing decode-and-forward (that simultaneously does message and interference forwarding) at the relay is derived and analyzed. This strategy is shown to achieve the capacity region under certain conditions. Our results demonstrate that the relay can help both receivers, despite the fact that it forwards only the message intended for one of them. This applies in general to communications in the presence of an interferer transmitting at any arbitrary rate. Interference forwarding improves reception of interfering signals at the receivers. This facilitates decoding of the unwanted messages and eliminating the resulting interference. Therefore, in networks with multiple source-destination pairs, in addition to relaying messages, interference forwarding may also be employed to help in combating interference.

The Discrete Memoryless Multiple Access Channel with Confidential Messages

A multiple-access channel is considered in which messages from one encoder are confidential. Confidential messages are to be transmitted with perfect secrecy, as measured by equivocation at the other encoder. The upper bounds and the achievable rates for this communication situation are determined

Cognitive Cellular Systems within the TV Spectrum

We propose a network architecture that enables spectrum sharing between a primary TV broadcast system and a secondary cellular broadband system. To compensate for the interference caused by overlay transmissions, the cognitive cellular base station cooperates with the TV system. We base our encoding approach on prior theoretical results and demonstrate how the cognition can be enabled in the TV spectrum. We show the performance gains of the proposed overlay approach for both the downlink and uplink of the cellular system. While the proposed approach requires that a cellular base station spends a part of its power to cooperate with the TV system, at the same time, it opens up frequency bands with favorable propagation properties, otherwise unavailable to cellular systems. This approach can thus bring benefits to both cellular and TV network operators in terms of performance and increased capacity.