Nested Lattice Codes for Gaussian Relay Networks With Interference

Abstract

In this paper, we consider a class of single-source multicast relay networks. We assume that all outgoing channels of a node in the network to its neighbors are orthogonal while the incoming signals from its neighbors can interfere with each other. We first focus on Gaussian relay networks with interference and find an achievable rate using a lattice coding scheme. We show that the achievable rate of our scheme is within a constant bit gap from the information theoretic cut-set bound, where the constant depends only on the network topology, but not on the transmit power, noise variance, and channel gains. This is similar to a recent result by Avestimehr, Diggavi, and Tse, who showed an approximate capacity characterization for general Gaussian relay networks. However, our achievability uses a structured code instead of a random one. Using the idea used in the Gaussian case, we also consider a linear finite-field symmetric network with interference and characterize its capacity using a linear coding scheme.