Interference Alignment in Dense Wireless Networks

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the capacity regions of dense wireless networks with arbitrary node placement, providing tight bounds using interference alignment, and introduces simple schemes to achieve these bounds.

Contribution

It offers the first tight scaling bounds for capacity regions in arbitrary dense wireless networks using interference alignment techniques.

Findings

Inner and outer bounds differ by a factor of O(log(n))

Interference alignment enables simple schemes to approach capacity bounds

Provides a fairly tight characterization of network capacity regions

Abstract

We consider arbitrary dense wireless networks, in which $n$ nodes are placed in an arbitrary (deterministic) manner on a square region of unit area and communicate with each other over Gaussian fading channels. We provide inner and outer bounds for the $n\times n$-dimensional unicast and the $n\times 2^n$-dimensional multicast capacity regions of such a wireless network. These inner and outer bounds differ only by a factor $O(\log(n))$, yielding a fairly tight scaling characterization of the entire regions. The communication schemes achieving the inner bounds use interference alignment as a central technique and are, at least conceptually, surprisingly simple.