Uri Erez

Nested linear/lattice codes for structured multiterminal binning

Network information theory promises high gains over simple point-to-point communication techniques, at the cost of higher complexity. However, lack of structured coding schemes limited the practical application of these concepts so far. One of the basic elements of a network code is the binning scheme. Wyner (1974, 1978) and other researchers proposed various forms of coset codes for efficient binning, yet these schemes were applicable only for lossless source (or noiseless channel) network coding. To extend the algebraic binning approach to lossy source (or noisy channel) network coding, previous work proposed the idea of nested codes, or more specifically, nested parity-check codes for the binary case and nested lattices in the continuous case. These ideas connect network information theory with the rich areas of linear codes and lattice codes, and have strong potential for practical applications. We review these developments and explore their tight relation to concepts such as combined shaping and precoding, coding for memories with defects, and digital watermarking. We also propose a few novel applications adhering to a unified approach.

Achieving 1/2 log (1+SNR) on the AWGN channel with lattice encoding and decoding

We address an open question, regarding whether a lattice code with lattice decoding (as opposed to maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding) can achieve the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel capacity. We first demonstrate how minimum mean-square error (MMSE) scaling along with dithering (lattice randomization) techniques can transform the power-constrained AWGN channel into a modulo-lattice additive noise channel, whose effective noise is reduced by a factor of /spl radic/(1+SNR/SNR). For the resulting channel, a uniform input maximizes mutual information, which in the limit of large lattice dimension becomes 1/2 log (1+SNR), i.e., the full capacity of the original power constrained AWGN channel. We then show that capacity may also be achieved using nested lattice codes, the coarse lattice serving for shaping via the modulo-lattice transformation, the fine lattice for channel coding. We show that such pairs exist for any desired nesting ratio, i.e., for any signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Furthermore, for the modulo-lattice additive noise channel lattice decoding is optimal. Finally, we show that the error exponent of the proposed scheme is lower bounded by the Poltyrev exponent.

Integer-Forcing Linear Receivers

Linear receivers are often used to reduce the implementation complexity of multiple-antenna systems. In a traditional linear receiver architecture, the receive antennas are used to separate out the codewords sent by each transmit antenna, which can then be decoded individually. Although easy to implement, this approach can be highly suboptimal when the channel matrix is near singular. This paper develops a new linear receiver architecture that uses the receive antennas to create an effective channel matrix with integer-valued entries. Rather than attempting to recover transmitted codewords directly, the decoder recovers integer combinations of the codewords according to the entries of the effective channel matrix. The codewords are all generated using the same linear code, which guarantees that these integer combinations are themselves codewords. Provided that the effective channel is full rank, these integer combinations can then be digitally solved for the original codewords. This paper focuses on the special case where there is no coding across transmit antennas and no channel state information at the transmitter(s), which corresponds either to a multiuser uplink scenario or to single-user V-BLAST encoding. In this setting, the proposed integer-forcing linear receiver significantly outperforms conventional linear architectures such as the zero forcing and linear minimum mean-squared error receiver. In the high signal-to-noise ratio regime, the proposed receiver attains the optimal diversity-multiplexing tradeoff for the standard multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel with no coding across transmit antennas. It is further shown that in an extended MIMO model with interference, the integer-forcing linear receiver achieves the optimal generalized degrees of freedom.

Rateless Coding for Gaussian Channels

A rateless code-i.e., a rate-compatible family of codes-has the property that codewords of the higher rate codes are prefixes of those of the lower rate ones. A perfect family of such codes is one in which each of the codes in the family is capacity-achieving. We show by construction that perfect rateless codes with low-complexity decoding algorithms exist for additive white Gaussian noise channels. Our construction involves the use of layered encoding and successive decoding, together with repetition using time-varying layer weights. As an illustration of our framework, we design a practical three-rate code family. We further construct rich sets of near-perfect rateless codes within our architecture that require either significantly fewer layers or lower complexity than their perfect counterparts. Variations of the basic construction are also developed, including one for time-varying channels in which there is no a priori stochastic model.

The Approximate Sum Capacity of the Symmetric Gaussian

Interference alignment has emerged as a powerful tool in the analysis of multiuser networks. Despite considerable recent progress, the capacity region of the Gaussian

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-User Interference Channel

-user interference channel is still unknown in general, in part due to the challenges associated with alignment on the signal scale using lattice codes. This paper develops a new framework for lattice interference alignment, based on the compute-and-forward approach. Within this framework, each receiver decodes by first recovering two or more linear combinations of the transmitted codewords with integer-valued coefficients and then solving these linear combinations for its desired codeword. For the special case of symmetric channel gains, this framework is used to derive the approximate sum capacity of the Gaussian interference channel, up to an explicitly defined outage set of the channel gains. The key contributions are the capacity lower bounds for the weak through strong interference regimes, where each receiver should jointly decode its own codeword along with part of the interfering codewords. As part of the analysis, it is shown that decoding

Integer-forcing linear receivers

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Achieving the Gaussian Rate–Distortion Function by Prediction

linear combinations of the codewords can approach the sum capacity of the

Carbon Copying Onto Dirty Paper

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