Abstract

Abstract — We study communication networks of arbitrary size and topology and communicating over a general vector discrete memoryless channel. We propose an information-theoretic constructive scheme for obtaining an achievable rate region in such networks. Many well-known capacity-defining achievable rate regions can be derived as special cases of the proposed scheme. A few such examples are the physically degraded and reverselydegraded relay channels, the Gaussian multiple-access channel, and the Gaussian broadcast channel. The proposed scheme also leads to inner bounds for the multicast and allcast capacities. Applying the proposed scheme to a specific wireless network   of nodes located in a region of unit area, we show that a transport capacity of ¡£ ¢ bit-meters/sec is feasible in a certain family of networks, as compared to the best possible transport capacity ¡£¢§ ¦   ¨ ¤ of bit-meters/sec in [16] where the receiver capabilities were limited. Even though the improvement is shown for a specific class of networks, a clear implication is that designing and employing more sophisticated multi-user coding schemes can provide sizable gains in at least some large wireless networks. Index Terms — Discrete memoryless channels, Gaussian channels, multiuser communications, network information theory,

Citations