Joint Interference Alignment and Bi-Directional Scheduling for MIMO Two-Way Multi-Link Networks

By means of the emerging technique of dynamic Time Division Duplex (TDD), the switching point between uplink and downlink transmissions can be optimized across a multi-cell system in order to reduce the impact of inter-cell interference. It has been recently recognized that optimizing also the order in which uplink and downlink transmissions, or more generally the two directions of a two-way link, are scheduled can lead to significant benefits in terms of interference reduction. In this work, the optimization of bi-directional scheduling is investigated in conjunction with the design of linear precoding and equalization for a general multi-link MIMO two-way system. A simple algorithm is proposed that performs the joint optimization of the ordering of the transmissions in the two directions of the two-way links and of the linear transceivers, with the aim of minimizing the interference leakage power. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.

Interactive Joint Transfer of Energy and Information

In some communication networks, such as passive RFID systems, the energy used to transfer information between a sender and a recipient can be reused for successive communication tasks. In fact, from known results in physics, any system that exchanges information via the transfer of given physical resources, such as radio waves, particles and qubits, can conceivably reuse, at least part, of the received resources. This paper aims at illustrating some of the new challenges that arise in the design of communication networks in which the signals exchanged by the nodes carry both information and energy. To this end, a baseline two-way communication system is considered in which two nodes communicate in an interactive fashion. In the system, a node can either send an on symbol (or 1), which costs one unit of energy, or an off signal (or 0), which does not require any energy expenditure. Upon reception of a 1 signal, the recipient node harvests, with some probability, the energy contained in the signal and stores it for future communication tasks. Inner and outer bounds on the achievable rates are derived. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategies and illustrate some key design insights.