CIF: Small: Exploring the Limits of Interference Networks under Practical Constraints

University Of Texas At Dallas, Richardson TX

Investigators

Abstract

As the number of wireless devices and their prevalence in our lives increases, and as the wireless infrastructures progress from micro-cells to pico-cells and even femto-cells, the interference dominated regime of operation becomes ever more important, and its management ever more critical, for the wireless applications of tomorrow. Interference alignment is an exciting recent development in wireless communication theory that addresses the fundamental problem of interference. The basic idea is to coordinate transmissions in a network so that interfering sources will overlap and concentrate instead of infesting the entire signal space, thus opening up clean signal space at each receiver and allowing a much larger throughput than previously thought possible. However, interference alignment also requires conditions that, in the current state of engineering knowledge, are impractical. Among them are the requirement of global channel state information, and a phenomenon known as bandwidth expansion that has to do with the resolution of observations and the geometry of spaces which must be "bent" to overlap the interference. Due in part to these issues, the practical impact of interference alignment on wireless communication remains a question of intense interest. The proposed activity addresses this question via (1) investigating methods that can reduce the requirement of channel state information; (2) investigating methods that can reduce bandwidth expansion and delay; and (3) exploring practical applications where interference alignment can have the most positive impact. This project has the potential to significantly impact the long-term prospects of a wide array of wireless communication devices and networks, including cellular, femto-cells, unlicensed bands, and vehicular networks.