Interference Alignment in Dense Wireless Networks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on information theory Vol. 57; no. 5; pp. 2889 - 2901
• Main Author: Niesen, U
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-05-2011; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Alignment; Approximation methods; Capacity scaling; Channel models; Channels; Communication channels; Data transmission; Electric noise; Fading; Gaussian; Information theory; Interference; interference alignment; Multicast; multicommodity flow; Networks; opportunistic communication; Protocols; Unicast; Wireless communication; Wireless networks
• ISSN: 0018-9448; 1557-9654
• DOI: 10.1109/TIT.2011.2119690

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 × n-dimensional unicast and the n × 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.