Multiaccess and fading in communication networks

Two fundamental issues in the design of wireless communication networks are the interference among multiple users and the time-varying nature of the fading wireless channel. We apply fundamental techniques in information theory and queueing theory to gain insights into the structure of these problems. In a terrestrial cellular or space network, multi-user interference arises naturally as different users in the same cell or region attempt to transmit to the base station or satellite at the same time and in the same frequency range. We first examine the impact of this interference on the design of error correction codes for reliable data transmission. At the physical layer of the wireless network, the phenomenon of multi-user interference is captured by the multiaccess (many-to-one) channel model. The set of all data rates at which reliable communication can take place over this channel is characterized via information theory by the so-called multiaccess capacity region. A basic problem is developing coding schemes of relatively low complexity to achieve all rates in this capacity region. By exploiting the underlying geometrical structure of the capacity region, we develop a method of reducing the multi-user coding problem to a set of single-user coding problems using the ideas of time-sharing and successive decoding. Next, we investigate the effect of multi-user interference on higher-layer quality-of-service issues such as packet delay. Under certain conditions of symmetry, we find that the structure of the multiaccess capacity region can again be used to obtain a "load-balancing" queue control strategy which minimizes average packet delay for Poisson data sources.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Yeh, Edmund Meng, 1971-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert G. Gallager.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/16789

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/16789