Yingbin Liang

Secure Communication Over Fading Channels

The fading broadcast channel with confidential messages (BCC) is investigated, where a source node has common information for two receivers (receivers 1 and 2), and has confidential information intended only for receiver 1. The confidential information needs to be kept as secret as possible from receiver 2. The broadcast channel from the source node to receivers 1 and 2 is corrupted by multiplicative fading gain coefficients in addition to additive Gaussian noise terms. The channel state information (CSI) is assumed to be known at both the transmitter and the receivers. The parallel BCC with independent subchannels is first studied, which serves as an information-theoretic model for the fading BCC. The secrecy capacity region of the parallel BCC is established, which gives the secrecy capacity region of the parallel BCC with degraded subchannels. The secrecy capacity region is then established for the parallel Gaussian BCC, and the optimal source power allocations that achieve the boundary of the secrecy capacity region are derived. In particular, the secrecy capacity region is established for the basic Gaussian BCC. The secrecy capacity results are then applied to study the fading BCC. The ergodic performance is first studied. The ergodic secrecy capacity region and the optimal power allocations that achieve the boundary of this region are derived. The outage performance is then studied, where a long-term power constraint is assumed. The power allocation is derived that minimizes the outage probability where either the target rate of the common message or the target rate of the confidential message is not achieved. The power allocation is also derived that minimizes the outage probability where the target rate of the confidential message is not achieved subject to the constraint that the target rate of the common message must be achieved for all channel states.

Multiple-Access Channels With Confidential Messages

A discrete memoryless multiple-access channel (MAC) with confidential messages is studied, where two users attempt to transmit common information to a destination and each user also has private (confidential) information intended for the destination. This channel generalizes the classical MAC model in that each user also receives channel outputs, and hence may obtain the confidential information sent by the other user from the channel output it receives. However, each user views the other user as a wiretapper or eavesdropper, and wishes to keep its confidential information as secret as possible from the other user. The level of secrecy of the confidential information is measured by the equivocation rate, i.e., the entropy rate of the confidential information conditioned on channel outputs at the wiretapper (the other user). The performance measure is the rate-equivocation tuple that includes the common rate, two private rates, and two equivocation rates as components. The set that includes all achievable rate-equivocation tuples is referred to as the capacity-equivocation region. The case of perfect secrecy is particularly of interest, in which each users confidential information is perfectly hidden from the other user. The set that includes all achievable rates with perfect secrecy is referred to as the secrecy capacity region. For the MAC with two confidential messages, in which both users have confidential messages for the destination, inner bounds on the capacity-equivocation region, and secrecy capacity region are obtained. It is demonstrated that there is a tradeoff between the two equivocation rates (secrecy levels) achieved for the two confidential messages. For the MAC with one confidential message, in which only one user (user 1) has private (confidential) information for the destination, inner and outer bounds on the capacity-equivocation region are derived. These bounds match partially, and hence the capacity-equivocation region is partially characterized. Furthermore, the outer bound provides a tight converse for the case of perfect secrecy, and hence establishes the secrecy capacity region. A class of degraded MACs with one confidential message is further studied, and the capacity-equivocation region and the secrecy capacity region are established. These results are further explored via two example channels: the binary and Gaussian MACs. For both channels, the capacity-equivocation regions and the secrecy capacity regions are obtained.

Gaussian orthogonal relay channels: optimal resource allocation and capacity

A Gaussian orthogonal relay model is investigated, where the source transmits to the relay and destination in channel 1, and the relay transmits to the destination in channel 2, with channels 1 and 2 being orthogonalized in the time-frequency plane in order to satisfy practical constraints. The total available channel resource (time and bandwidth) is split into the two orthogonal channels, and the resource allocation to the two channels is considered to be a design parameter that needs to be optimized. The main focus of the analysis is on the case where the source-to-relay link is better than the source-to-destination link, which is the usual scenario encountered in practice. A lower bound on the capacity (achievable rate) is derived, and optimized over the parameter /spl theta/, which represents the fraction of the resource assigned to channel 1. It is shown that the lower bound achieves the max-flow min-cut upper bound at the optimizing /spl theta/, the common value thus being the capacity of the channel at the optimizing /spl theta/. Furthermore, it is shown that when the relay-to-destination signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is less than a certain threshold, the capacity at the optimizing /spl theta/ is also the maximum capacity of the channel over all possible resource allocation parameters /spl theta/. Finally, the achievable rates for optimal and equal resource allocations are compared, and it is shown that optimizing the resource allocation yields significant performance gains.

Compound wiretap channels

This paper considers the compound wiretap channel, which generalizes Wyners wiretap model to allow the channels to the (legitimate) receiver and to the eavesdropper to take a number of possible states. No matter which states occur, the transmitter guarantees that the receiver decodes its message and that the eavesdropper is kept in full ignorance about the message. The compound wiretap channel can also be viewed as a multicast channel with multiple eavesdroppers, in which the transmitter sends information to all receivers and keeps the information secret from all eavesdroppers. For the discrete memoryless channel, lower and upper bounds on the secrecy capacity are derived. The secrecy capacity is established for the degraded channel and the semideterministic channel with one receiver. The parallel Gaussian channel is further studied. The secrecy capacity and the secrecy degree of freedom () are derived for the degraded case with one receiver. Schemes to achieve the for the case with two receivers and two eavesdroppers are constructed to demonstrate the necessity of a prefix channel in encoder design. Finally, the multi-antenna (i.e., MIMO) compound wiretap channel is studied. The secrecy capacity is established for the degraded case and an achievable is given for the general case.

Cooperative Relay Broadcast Channels

The capacity regions are investigated for two relay broadcast channels (RBCs), where relay links are incorporated into two-user broadcast channels to support user cooperation. In the first channel, the partially cooperative RBC, only one user in the system acts as a relay. An achievable rate region is derived based on the relay using the decode-and-forward scheme. An outer bound on the capacity region is derived and is shown to be tighter than the cut-set bound. For the special case where the partially cooperative RBC is degraded, the achievable rate region is shown to be the capacity region. Two Gaussian cases of the partially cooperative RBC are studied. For the system where the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) term at one receiver is a degraded version of the other, which we refer to as the D-AWGN partially cooperative RBC, the capacity region is established. For the system where the AWGN term at one receiver is independent of the other, which we refer to as the AWGN partially cooperative RBC, inner and outer bounds on the capacity region are derived and are shown to be close. Furthermore, it is shown that feedback does not increase the capacity region for the degraded partially cooperative RBC, but that it improves the capacity region for the nondegraded version. In particular, feedback improves the capacity region for the AWGN partially cooperative RBC. In the second channel model being studied in the paper, the fully cooperative RBC, both users can act as relay nodes. All the results for the partially cooperative RBC are correspondingly generalized to the fully cooperative RBC. In particular, capacity regions are established for the degraded and D-AWGN fully cooperative RBCs. The capacity region is also established for the fully cooperative RBC with feedback. It is further shown that the AWGN fully cooperative RBC has a larger achievable rate region than its partially cooperative counterpart. The results illustrate that relaying and user cooperation are powerful techniques for improving the capacity of broadcast channels

Resource Allocation for Wireless Fading Relay Channels: Max-Min Solution

Resource allocation is investigated for fading relay channels under separate power constraints at the source and relay nodes. As a basic information-theoretic model for fading relay channels, the parallel relay channel is first studied, which consists of multiple independent three-terminal relay channels as subchannels. Lower and upper bounds on the capacity are derived, and are shown to match, and thus establish the capacity for the parallel relay channel with degraded subchannels. This capacity theorem is further demonstrated via the Gaussian parallel relay channel with degraded subchannels, for which the synchronized and asynchronized capacities are obtained. The capacity-achieving power allocation at the source and relay nodes among the subchannels is partially characterized for the synchronized case and fully characterized for the asynchronized case. The fading relay channel is then studied, which is based on the three-terminal relay channel with each communication link being corrupted by a multiplicative fading gain coefficient as well as an additive Gaussian noise term. For each link, the fading state information is assumed to be known at both the transmitter and the receiver. The source and relay nodes are allowed to allocate their power adaptively according to the instantaneous channel state information. The source and relay nodes are assumed to be subject to separate power constraints. For both the full-duplex and half-duplex cases, power allocations that maximize the achievable rates are obtained. In the half-duplex case, the power allocation needs to be jointly optimized with the channel resource (time and bandwidth) allocation between the two orthogonal channels over which the relay node transmits and receives. Capacities are established for fading relay channels that satisfy certain conditions.

Rate Regions for Relay Broadcast Channels

A partially cooperative relay broadcast channel (RBC) is a three-node network with one source node and two destination nodes (destinations 1 and 2) where destination 1 can act as a relay to assist destination 2. Inner and outer bounds on the capacity region of the discrete memoryless partially cooperative RBC are obtained. When the relay function is disabled, the inner bound reduces to an inner bound on the capacity region of broadcast channels that includes an inner bound of Marton, and GePfand and Pinsker. The outer bound reduces to a new outer bound on the capacity region of broadcast channels that generalizes an outer bound of Marton to include a common message, and that generalizes an outer bound of GePfand and Pinsker to apply to general discrete memoryless broadcast channels. The proof for the outer bound simplifies the proof of GePfand and Pinsker that was based on a recursive approach. Four classes of RBCs are studied in detail. For the partially cooperative RBC with degraded message sets, inner and outer bounds are obtained. For the semideterministic partially cooperative RBC and the orthogonal partially cooperative RBC, the capacity regions are established. For the parallel partially cooperative RBC with unmatched degraded subchannels, the capacity region is established for the case of degraded message sets. The capacity is also established when the source node has only a private message for destination 2, i.e., the channel reduces to a parallel relay channel with unmatched degraded subchannels.

Capacity of Cognitive Interference Channels With and Without Secrecy

Like the conventional two-user interference channel, the cognitive interference channel consists of two transmitters whose signals interfere at two receivers. It is assumed that there is a common message (message 1) known to both transmitters, and an additional independent message (message 2) known only to the cognitive transmitter (transmitter 2). The cognitive receiver (receiver 2) needs to decode messages 1 and 2, while the non cognitive receiver (receiver 1) should decode only message 1. Furthermore, message 2 is assumed to be a confidential message which needs to be kept as secret as possible from receiver 1, which is viewed as an eavesdropper with regard to message 2. The level of secrecy is measured by the equivocation rate. In this paper, a single-letter expression for the capacity-equivocation region of the discrete memoryless cognitive interference channel is obtained. The capacity-equivocation region for the Gaussian cognitive interference channel is also obtained explicitly. Moreover, particularizing the capacity-equivocation region to the case without a secrecy constraint, the capacity region for the two-user cognitive interference channel is obtained, by providing a converse theorem.

Capacity of noncoherent time-selective Rayleigh-fading channels

The capacity of noncoherent time-selective Rayleigh-fading channels is studied under various models for the variations in time. The study includes both single-input and single-output (SISO) and multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) systems. A block-fading model is first considered where the channel changes correlatively over each block period of length T, and independently across blocks. The predictability of the channel is characterized through the rank Q of the correlation matrix of the vector of channel gains in each block. This model includes, as special cases, the standard block-fading model where the channel remains constant over block periods (Q=1), and models where the fading process has finite differential entropy rate (Q=T). The capacity is initially studied for long block lengths and some straightforward but interesting asymptotes are established. For the case where Q is kept fixed as T/spl rarr//spl infin/, it is shown that the noncoherent capacity converges to the coherent capacity. For the case where both T,Q/spl rarr//spl infin/, with Q/T being held constant, a bound on the capacity loss due to channel unpredictability is established. The more interesting scenario of large signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is then explored in detail. For SISO systems, useful upper and lower bounds on the large SNR asymptotic capacity are derived, and it is shown that the capacity grows logarithmically with SNR with a slope of T-Q/spl rarr/T, for Q<T. Next, in order to facilitate the analysis of MIMO systems, the rank-Q block-fading model is specialized to the case where each T-symbol block consists of Q subblocks of length L, with the channel remaining constant over each subblock and changing correlatively across subblocks. For this model, it is shown that the log SNR growth behavior of the capacity is the same as that of the standard block-fading model with block length L. Finally, the SISO and MIMO channel models are generalized to allow the fading process to be correlated across blocks in a stationary and ergodic manner. It is shown that the log SNR growth behavior of the capacity is not affected by the correlation across blocks.

Correlated MIMO wireless channels: capacity, optimal signaling, and asymptotics

The capacity of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless channel with uniform linear arrays (ULAs) of antennas at the transmitter and receiver is investigated. It is assumed that the receiver knows the channel perfectly but that the transmitter knows only the channel statistics. The analysis is carried out using an equivalent virtual representation of the channel that is obtained via a spatial discrete Fourier transform. A key property of the virtual representation that is exploited is that the components of virtual channel matrix are approximately independent. With this approximation, the virtual representation allows for a general capacity analysis without the common simplifying assumptions of Gaussian statistics and product-form correlation (Kronecker model) for the channel matrix elements. A deterministic line-of-sight (LOS) component in the channel is also easily incorporated in much of the analysis. It is shown that in the virtual domain, the capacity-achieving input vector consists of independent zero-mean proper-complex Gaussian entries, whose variances can be computed numerically using standard convex programming algorithms based on the channel statistics. Furthermore, in the asymptotic regime of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), it is shown that beamforming along one virtual transmit angle is asymptotically optimal. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the optimality of beamforming, and the value of the corresponding optimal virtual angle, are also derived based on only the second moments of the virtual channel coefficients. Numerical results indicate that beamforming may be close to optimum even at moderate values of SNR for sparse scattering environments. Finally, the capacity is investigated in the asymptotic regime where the numbers of receive and transmit antennas go to infinity, with their ratio being kept constant. Using a result of Girko, an expression for the asymptotic capacity scaling with the number of antennas is obtained in terms