CIF: Small: Cooperative Interference Management-A Fundamental Study

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

Interference is a fundamental feature of the wireless medium and a major performance bottleneck in the engineering of wireless networks. However, the broadcast nature of the wireless medium which manifests itself in the form of interference can also be a benefit in disguise. It allows multiple nodes to receive a common signal and generates the potential for cooperation. Much of the fundamental research effort on the broadcast aspect so far has addressed these two aspects (interference and cooperation) separately. This project studies interference management and cooperation in a common context and a holistic manner. The research conducted in this effort (a) looks for novel communication strategies that harness the broadcast advantage while minimizing its interfering nature; (b) looks to identify engineering contexts where the novel communication strategies provide the most gain over traditional approaches; and (c) looks to characterize novel fundamental outer bounds (beyond the cut-set ones) to rates of reliable network communication where cooperation and interference coexist. These goals are addressed by starting out with simple (but canonical) models of wireless networks featuring two unicast traffic under three formulations that cover a wide range of issues in wireless networks: (i) cooperative networks such as cellular networks, (ii) competitive networks or networks with restricted cooperation such as Wi-Fi, and(iii) heterogenous networks involving cognitive radios.