Lecture 3

Capacity of Multiuser Gaussian Channels

• The Gaussian uplink: 6.1

• The fading Gaussian uplink: 6.3 (parts)
• The Gaussian downlink: 6.2
• The fading Gaussian downlink: 6.4 (parts)

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 1/20

The Gaussian Uplink

(1)
W1 xm
α1

ym Ŵ1
f (y|x(1) , x(2) ) β
Ŵ2
(2)
W2 xm
α2

• Study the case of two users, for simplicity.

• The information-theoretic multiple access channel, with transition
density f (y|x(1) , x(2) )

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 2/20

 (1) (2)
• The Gaussian multiple access channel: ym = xm + xm + wm ,
where {wm } is i.i.d complex Gaussian CN (0, σ 2 )
• Coding:
• Data: W1 ∈ I1 = {1, . . . , M1 } and W2 ∈ I2 = {1, . . . , M2 },
• uniformly distributed and independent
• Encoders: α1 : I1 → Cn and α2 : I2 → Cn
• Power constraints:
n n
1 X (1) 2 1 X (2) 2
|xm | ≤ P1 , |xm | ≤ P2
n m=1 n m=1

• Rates: R1 = log M1 /n and R2 = log M2 /n

• Decoder: β : Cn → I1 × I2 , β(y1n ) = (Ŵ1 , Ŵ2 )
• Error probability:

Pe(n) = Pr (Ŵ1 , Ŵ2 ) 6= (W1 , W2 )

` ´

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 3/20

• Capacity: Two (or more) rates, R1 and R2 =⇒ cannot consider

one maximum achievable rate =⇒ study sets of achievable
rate-pairs (R1 , R2 ),
• achievable rate-pair: (R1 , R2 ) is achievable if (α1 , α2 , β)n exist such
(n)
that Pe → 0 as n → ∞
• capacity region:
C = the closure of the set of all achievable (R1 , R2 )

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 4/20

 • Capacity-region of the Gaussian uplink: (R1 , R2 ) ∈ C if and only
if
 
P1
R1 ≤ log 1 + 2
σ
 
P2
R2 ≤ log 1 + 2
σ
 
P1 + P2
R1 + R2 ≤ log 1 +
σ2

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 5/20

• The two-user Gaussian multiple access region (figure from the textbook).
Noise variance σ 2 = N0 .

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 6/20

 • Achieving capacity:
• Independent ’Gaussian codebooks’ C1 and C2 , rates R1 and R2 ,
powers P1 and P2
• Users encode W1 and W2 independently using C1 and C2
• To achieve point ’B’ in the figure, use interference cancellation,
• decode user 1 treating the codeword of user 2 as noise
• subtract the codeword of user 1
• decode user 2
• Change order to achieve ’A’
• Points on the segment AB achieved by time sharing
• The points on AB are ’optimal’

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 7/20

• Orthogonal multiple access; take TDMA for simplicity, let

α ∈ [0, 1]:
• user 1 uses the channel a fraction α of time
• user 2 uses the channel a fraction (1 − α) of time
gives the region
 
P1
R1 ≤ α log 1 +
ασ 2
 
P2
R2 ≤ (1 − α) log 1 +
(1 − α)σ 2

Any orthogonal scheme will give an equivalent expression

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 8/20

 R2
general

T/F-DMA

R1

Capacity region for P1 = P2 .

Note that T/F-DMA is only optimal when α/(1 − α) = P1 /P2 .

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 9/20

• K-users,
• capacity region: straightforward generalization. . .
• sum capacity: some of the rates

K „ P
k Pk
X «
Rk < Csum = log 1 +
σ2
k=1

are always achievable ⇒ sum rates < Csum achievable

• symmetric capacity: Csym = largest R such that
R1 = R2 = · · · = RK = R are in the capacity region.
With P1 = P2 = · · · = PK = P we get
„ «
1 KP
Csym = log 1 + 2
K σ

• can be achieved with orthogonal access

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 10/20

The Fading Gaussian Uplink

• Slow fading, perfect CSIR, no CSIT:

• Received signal
ym = h1 x(1) (2)
m + h2 xm + wm

{wm } is i.i.d complex Gaussian CN (0, σ 2 ), and hi , i = 1, 2, are fixed

channel gains, drawn according to f (h1 , h2 )
• Conditional capacity region: (R1 , R2 ) ∈ C(h1 , h2 ) iff

|h1 |2 P1
„ «
R1 ≤ log 1 +
σ2
|h2 |2 P2
„ «
R2 ≤ log 1 +
σ2
|h1 |2 P1 + |h2 |2 P2
„ «
R1 + R2 ≤ log 1 +
σ2

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 11/20

• Outage probability: The probability that coding at rates (R1 , R2 )

fails,
pul


out = Pr (R1 , R2 ) ∈
/ C(h1 , h2 )
• ε-outage capacity region: The closure of the set

{(R1 , R2 ) : pul
out (R1 , R2 ) ≤ ε}

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 12/20

 • Fast fading, perfect CSIR, no CSIT:
• Received signal

ym = h(1) (1) (2) (2)

m xm + hm xm + wm

(i)
{wm } is i.i.d complex Gaussian CN (0, σ 2 ), and hm , i = 1, 2, are
jointly stationary and ergodic ⇒ (R1 , R2 ) ∈ C iff
" !#
(1)
|hm |2 P1
R1 ≤ E log 1 +
σ2
" !#
(2)
|hm |2 P2
R2 ≤ E log 1 +
σ2
" !#
(1) (2)
|hm |2 P1 + |hm |2 P2
R1 + R2 ≤ E log 1 +
σ2

• Fast fading, perfect CSIR, perfect CSIT: Next lecture

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 13/20

The Gaussian Downlink Channel

(1)
ym Ŵ1
β1
(W1 , W2 ) xm
α f (y (1) , y (2) |x)
(2)
ym Ŵ2
β2

• The information-theoretic broadcast channel, with transition density

f (y (1) , y (2) |x)

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 14/20

 • Degraded broadcast channel,
y1

x x y1 y2
f (y1 , y2 |x) ⇔ f (y1 |x) f (y2 |y1 )
y2

• A (general) broadcast channel is degraded if it can be split as in the

figure. That is, y2 is a “noisier” version of x, and

f (y1 , y2 |x) = f (y2 |y1 )f (y1 |x)

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 15/20

• The Gaussian broadcast (downlink) channel,

(i) (i)
ym = xm + wm , i = 1, 2

(i) (i)
• {wm } i.i.d zero-mean Gaussian, E[|wm |2 ] = σi2
• the channel is degraded (why?)
• Coding:
• Data: W1 ∈ I1 = {1, . . . , M1 } and W2 ∈ I2 = {1, . . . , M2 }
• Encoder: α : I1 × I2 → Cn , codewords xn 1 (w1 , w2 )
• Power constraint:
n
1 X
|xm |2 ≤ P
n m=1
• Rates: R1 = log M1 /n and R2 = log M2 /n
• Decoders: β1 : Cn → I1 , β2 : Cn → I2
(n) ` ´
• Error probability: Pe = Pr (Ŵ1 , Ŵ2 ) 6= (W1 , W2 )

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 16/20

 • Capacity,
• achievable rate-pair: (R1 , R2 ) is achievable if (α, β1 , β2 )n exist such
(n)
that Pe → 0 as n → ∞
• capacity region:
C = the closure of the set of all achievable (R1 , R2 )
• Capacity region for the Gaussian downlink,
• assume σ1 < σ2 ⇒ the pair
„ «
αP
R1 < log 1 + 2
σ1
„ «
(1 − α)P
R2 < log 1 +
αP + σ22

can be achieved for any α ∈ [0, 1]

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 17/20

• Superposition coding achieves capacity:

• Assume σ1 < σ2 (user 1 is the ’good’ user)
• Let P1 = αP and P2 = (1 − α)P
• Generate two independent ’Gaussian codebooks’ C1 and C2 with
powers P1 and P2 and rates R1 and R2
(1) (2)
• Code w1 into xm using C1 and w2 into xm using C2 , transmit
(1) (2)
xm = xm + xm — superposition coding
(1)
• β2 assumes {xm } is noise, and decodes only w2 using C2
(1) (2)
• β1 first decodes w2 based on ym and subtracts the correct xm to
(1) (1) (2) (1) (1)
form ȳm = ym − xm = xm + wm , then β1 decodes w1 based on
(1)
ȳm
• interference cancellation
• works since user 1 has a better channel ⇒ must be able to order
users according to their ’goodness’

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 18/20

 • The two-user Gaussian broadcast region (figure from the textbook).

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 19/20

The Fading Gaussian Downlink

• Fast fading, perfect CSIR, no CSIT:

• Received signal
(i)
ym = h(i) (i)
m xm + wm
(i)
with the hm ’s, i = 1, . . . , M , jointly stationary and ergodic,
• general case unsolved!, the channel is non-degraded. . .
• the symmetric case, when the the h(i) m ’s are identically distributed,
i = 1, . . . , K, the capacity region is
K (i)
" !#
X |hm |2 P
Rk ≤ E log 1 +
k=1
σ2

• Fast fading, perfect CSIR, perfect CSIT: Next lecture

Mikael Skoglund, Theoretical Foundations of Wireless 20/20