Multi-Layer Transmission and Hybrid Relaying for Relay Channels with Multiple Out-of-Band Relays

TL;DR

This paper introduces a multi-layer transmission and hybrid relaying strategy for relay channels with multiple out-of-band relays, optimizing power and compression to approach theoretical capacity bounds.

Contribution

It proposes a novel multi-layer hybrid decode-and-forward and compress-and-forward scheme with an iterative optimization algorithm for relay networks.

Findings

Achieves performance close to the cutset upper bound.

Effectively leverages relay decoding capabilities through multi-layer transmission.

Provides an iterative algorithm based on geometric programming for optimization.

Abstract

In this work, a relay channel is studied in which a source encoder communicates with a destination decoder through a number of out-of-band relays that are connected to the decoder through capacity-constrained digital backhaul links. This model is motivated by the uplink of cloud radio access networks. In this scenario, a novel transmission and relaying strategies are proposed in which multi-layer transmission is used, on the one hand, to adaptively leverage the different decoding capabilities of the relays and, on the other hand, to enable hybrid decode-and-forward (DF) and compress-and-forward (CF) relaying. The hybrid relaying strategy allows each relay to forward part of the decoded messages and a compressed version of the received signal to the decoder. The problem of optimizing the power allocation across the layers and the compression test channels is formulated. Albeit non-convex, the derived problem is found to belong to the class of so called complementary geometric programs (CGPs). Using this observation, an iterative algorithm based on the homotopy method is proposed that achieves a stationary point of the original problem by solving a sequence of geometric programming (GP), and thus convex, problems. Numerical results are provided that show the effectiveness of the proposed multi-layer hybrid scheme in achieving performance close to a theoretical (cutset) upper bound.