We consider a two-way relay channel in which two transmitters want to exchange information through a central relay. The relay observes a superposition of the trans- mitted signals from which a function of the transmitted messages is computed for broadcast. We consider the design of codebooks which permit the recovery of a function at the relay and derive information-theoretic bounds on the rates for reliable decoding at the relay. In the spirit of compute-and-forward, we present a multilevel coding scheme that permits reliable computation (or, decoding) of a class of functions at the relay. The function to be decoded is chosen at the relay depending on the channel realization. We define such a class of reliably computable functions for the proposed coding scheme and derive rates that are universally achievable over a set of channel gains when this class of functions is used at the relay. We develop our framework with general modulation formats in mind, but numerical results are presented for the case where each node transmits using 4-ary and 8-ary modulation schemes. Numerical results demonstrate that the flexibility afforded by our proposed scheme permits substantially higher rates than those achievable by always using a fixed function or considering only linear functions over higher order fields. Our numerical results indicate that it is favorable to allow the relay to attempt both compute-and-forward and decode-and-forward decoding. Indeed, either method considered separately is suboptimal for computation over general channels. However, we obtain a converse result when the transmitters are restricted to using identical binary linear codebooks generated uniformly at random. We show that it is impossible for this code ensemble to achieve any rate higher than the maximum of the rates achieved using compute-and-forward and decode-and-forward decoding. Finally, we turn our attention to the design of low density parity check (LDPC) ensembles which can practically achieve these information rates with joint-compute- and-forward message passing decoding. To this end, we construct a class of two-way erasure multiple access channels for which we can exactly characterize the performance of joint-compute-and-forward message passing decoding. We derive the processing rules and a density evolution like analysis for several classes of LDPC ensembles. Utilizing the universally optimal performance of spatially coupled LDPC ensembles with message passing decoding, we show that a single encoder and de- coder with puncturing can achieve the optimal rate region for a range of channel parameters.

In this dissertation we consider cooperative communication systems with relay conferencing, where the relays own the capabilities to talk to their counterparts via either wired or wireless out-of-band links. In particular, we focus on the design of conferencing protocols incorporating the half-duplex relaying operations, and study the corresponding capacity upper and lower bounds for some typical channels and networks models, including the diamond relay channels (one source-destination pairs and two relays), large relay networks (one source-destination pairs and N relays), and interference relay channels (two source-destination pairs and two relays). First, for the diamond relay channels, we consider two different relaying schemes, i.e., simultaneous relaying (for which the two relays transmit and receive in the same time slot) and alternative relaying (for which the two relays exchange their transmit and receive modes alternatively over time), for which we obtain the respective achievable rates by using the decode-and-forward (DF), compress-and-forward (CF), and amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying schemes with DF and AF adopted the conferencing schemes. Moreover, we prove some capacity results under some special conditions. Second, we consider the large relay networks, and propose a "p-portion" conferencing scheme, where each relay can talk to the other "p-portion" of the relays. We obtain the DF and AF achievable rates by using the AF conferencing scheme. It is proved that relay conferencing increases the throughput scaling order of the DF relaying scheme from O(log(log(N ))) for the case without conferencing to O(log(N )); for the AF relaying scheme, it achieves the capacity upper bound under some conditions. Finally, we consider the two-hop interference relay channels, and obtain the AF achievable rates by adopting the AF conferencing scheme and two different decoding schemes at the destination, i.e., single-user decoding and joint decoding. For the derived joint source power allocation and relay combining problem, we develop some efficient iterative algorithms to compute the AF achievable rate regions. Moreover, we compare the achievable degree-of-freedom (DoF) performance of these two decoding schemes, and show that single-user decoding with interference cancellation at the relays is optimal.

Physical layer network coding (PNC) was proposed under the two-way relay hannel (TWRC) scenario, where two sources exchange information aided by a relay. PNC allows the two sources to transmit to the relay simultaneously, where superimposed signals at the relay can be mapped to network-coded symbols and then be broadcast to both sources instead of being treated as interference. Concurrent transmissions using PNC achieve a higher spectrum efficiency compared to time division and network coding solutions. Existing research mainly focused on the symmetric PNC designs, where the same channel coding and modulation configurations are applied by both sources. When the channel conditions of the two source-relay links are asymmetric or unequal amount of data are exchanged, heterogeneous modulation PNC designs are necessary. In additional, the design and optimization of multi-hop PNC, where multiple relays forming a multi-hop path between the two sources, remains an open issue. The above issues motivate the study of this dissertation. This dissertation investigates the design of heterogeneous modulation physical layer network coding (HePNC), the integration of channel error control coding into HePNC, the combination of HePNC with hierarchical modulation, and the design and generalization of multi-hop PNC. The contributions of this dissertation are four-fold. First, under the asymmetric TWRC scenario, where the channel conditions of the two source-relay links are asymmetric, we designed a HePNC protocol, including the optimization of the adaptive mapping functions and the bit-symbol labeling, to minimize the end-to-end BER. In addition, we developed an analytical framework to derive the BER of HePNC. HePNC can substantially enhance the throughput compared to the existing symmetric PNC under the asymmetric TWRC scenario. Second, we investigated channel coded HePNC and integrated the channel error control coding into HePNC in a link-to-link coding, where the relay tries to decode the superimposed codewords in the multi-access stage. A full-state sum-product decoding algorithm is proposed at the relay based on the repeat-accumulate codes to guarantee reliable end-to-end communication. Third, we proposed hierarchical modulation PNC (H-PNC) under asymmetric TWRC, where additional data exchange between the relay and the source with the relatively better channel condition is achieved in addition to that between the two end sources, benefiting from superimposing the additional data flow on the PNC transmission. When the relay also has the data exchange requirement with the source with a better source-relay channel, H-PNC outperforms HePNC and PNC in terms of the system sum throughput. Fourth, we designed and generalized multi-hop PNC, where multiple relays located in a linear topology are scheduled to support the data exchange between two end sources. The impact of error propagation and mutual interference among the nodes are addressed and optimized. The proposed designs outperform the existing ones in terms of end-to-end BER and end-to-end throughout. / Graduate

No description available.

This dissertation studies a number of important issues that arise in multiple-input multiple-out wireless systems. First, wireless systems equipped with multiple-transmit multiple-receive antennas are considered where an energy-based antenna selection is performed at the receiver. Three different situations are considered: (i) selection over iid MIMO fading channel, (ii) selection over spatially correlated fading channel, and (iii) selection for space-time coded OFDM systems. In all cases, explicit upper bounds are derived and it is shown that using the proposed antenna selection, one can achieve the same diversity order as that attained by full-complexity MIMO systems. Next, joint source-channel coding problem for MIMO antenna systems is studied and a turbo-coded multiple description code for multiple antenna transmission is developed. Simulations indicate that by the proposed iterative joint source-channel decoding that exchanges the extrinsic information between the source code and the channel code, one can achieve better reconstruction quality than that can be achieved by the single-description codes at the same rate. The rest of the dissertation deals with wireless networks. Two problems are studied: channel coding for cooperative diversity in wireless networks, and distributed detection in wireless sensor networks. First, a turbo-code based channel code for three-terminal full-duplex wireless relay channels is proposed where both the source and the relay nodes employ turbo codes. An iterative turbo decoding algorithm exploiting the information arriving from both the source and relay nodes is proposed. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can perform very close to the capacity of a wireless relay channel. Next the parallel and serial binary distributed detection problem in wireless sensor networks is investigated. Detection strategies based on single-bit and multiple-bit decisions are considered. The expressions for the detection and false alarm rates are derived and used for designing the optimal detection rules at all sensor nodes. Also, an analog approach to the distributed detection in wireless sensor networks is proposed where each sensor nodes simply amplifies-and-forwards its sufficient statistics to the fusion center. This method requires very simple processing at the local sensor. Numerical examples indicate that the analog approach is superior to the digital approach in many cases.

Los canales múltiple-entrada-múltiple-salida (MIMO) han sido ampliamente propuestos para superar los desvanecimientos aleatorios de canal en comunicaciones inalámbricas no selectivas en frecuencia. Basados en equipar tanto transmisores como receptores con múltiple antenas, sus ventajas son dobles. Por un lado, permiten al transmisor: i) concentrar la energía transmitida en una dirección-propia determinada, o ii) codificar entre antenas con el fin de superar desvanecimientos no conocidos de canal. Por otro lado, facilitan al receptor el muestreo de la señal en el dominio espacial. Esta operación, seguida por la combinación coherente de muestras, aumenta la relación señal a ruido de entrada al receptor. De esta forma, el procesado multi-antena es capaz de incrementar la capacidad (y la fiabilidad) de la transmisión en escenarios con alta dispersión.Desafortunadamente, no siempre es posible emplazar múltiples antenas en los dispositivos inalámbricos, debido a limitaciones de espacio y/o coste. Para estos casos, la manera más apropiada de explotar el procesado multi-antena es mediante retransmisión, consistente en disponer un conjunto de repetidores inalámbricos que asistan la comunicación entre un grupo de transmisores y un grupo de receptores, todos con una única antena. Con la ayuda de los repetidores, por tanto, los canales MIMO se pueden imitar de manera distribuida. Sin embargo, la capacidad exacta de las comunicaciones con repetidores (así como la manera en que este esquema funciona con respeto al MIMO equivalente) es todavía un problema no resuelto. A dicho problema dedicamos esta tesis.En particular, la presente disertación tiene como objetivo estudiar la capacidad de canales Gaussianos asistidos por múltiples repetidores paralelos. Dos repetidores se dicen paralelos si no existe conexión directa entre ellos, si bien ambos tienen conexión directa con la fuente y el destino de la comunicación. Nos centramos en el análisis de tres canales ampliamente conocidos: el canal punto-a-punto, el canal de múltiple-acceso y el canal de broadcast, y estudiamos su mejora de funcionamiento con repetidores. A lo largo de la tesis, se tomarán las siguientes hipótesis: i) operación full-duplex en los repetidores, ii) conocimiento de canal tanto en transmisión como en recepción, y iii) desvanecimiento sin memoria, e invariante en el tiempo.En primer lugar, analizamos el canal con múltiples repetidores paralelos, en el cual una única fuente se comunica con un único destino en presencia de N repetidores paralelos. Derivamos límites inferiores de la capacidad del canal por medio de las tasas de transmisión conseguibles con distintos protocolos: decodificar-y-enviar, decodificar-parcialmente-y-enviar, comprimir-y-enviar, y repetición lineal. Asimismo, con un fin comparativo, proveemos un límite superior, obtenido a través del Teorema de max-flow-min-cut. Finalmente, para el número de repetidores tendiendo a infinito, presentamos las leyes de crecimiento de todas las tasas de transmisión, así como la del límite superior.A continuación, la tesis se centra en el canal de múltiple-acceso (MAC) con múltiples repetidores paralelos. El canal consiste en múltiples usuarios comunicándose simultáneamente con un único destino en presencia de N repetidores paralelos. Derivamos una cota superior de la región de capacidad de dicho canal utilizando, de nuevo, el Teorema de max-flow-min-cut, y encontramos regiones de tasas de transmisión conseguibles mediante: decodificar-y-enviar, comprimir-y-enviar, y repetición lineal. Asimismo, se analiza el valor asintótico de dichas tasas de transmisión conseguibles, asumiendo el número de usuarios creciendo sin límite. Dicho estudio nos permite intuir el impacto de la diversidad multiusuario en redes de acceso con repetidores.Finalmente, la disertación considera el canal de broadcast (BC) con múltiples repetidores paralelos. En él, una única fuente se comunica con múltiples destinos en presencia de N repetidores paralelos. Para dicho canal, derivamos tasas de transmisión conseguibles dado: i) codificación de canal tipo dirty paper en la fuente, ii) decodificar-y-enviar, comprimir-y-enviar, y repetición lineal, respectivamente, en los repetidores. Además, para repetición lineal, demostramos que la dualidad MAC-BC se cumple. Es decir, la región de tasas de transmisión conseguibles en el BC es igual a aquélla del MAC con una limitación de potencia suma. Utilizando este resultado, se derivan algoritmos de asignación óptima de recursos basados en teoría de optimización convexa. / Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) channels are extensively proposed as a means to overcome the random channel impairments of frequency-flat wireless communications. Based upon placing multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver sides of the communication, their virtues are twofold. On the one hand, they allow the transmitter: i) to concentrate the transmitted power onto a desired eigen-direction, or ii) tocode across antennas to overcome unknown channel fading. On the other hand, they permit the receiver to sample the signal on the space domain. This operation, followed by the coherent combination of samples, increases the signal-to-noise ratio at the input of the detector. In fine, MIMO processing is able to provide large capacity (and reliability) gains within rich-scattered scenarios.Nevertheless, equipping wireless handsets with multiple antennas is not always possible or worthwhile. Mainly, due to size and cost constraints, respectively. For these cases, the most appropriate manner to exploit multi-antenna processing is by means of relaying. This consists of a set of wireless relay nodes assisting the communication between a set of single-antenna sources and a set of single-antenna destinations. With the aid of relays, indeed, MIMO channels can be mimicked in a distributed way. However, the exact channel capacity of single-antenna communications with relays (and how this scheme performs with respect to the equivalent MIMO channel) is a long-standing open problem. To it we have devoted this thesis.In particular, the present dissertation aims at studying the capacity of Gaussian channels when assisted by multiple, parallel, relays. Two relays are said to be parallel if there is no direct link between them, while both have direct link from the source and towards the destination. We focus on three well-known channels: the point-to-point channel, the multi-access channel and the broadcast channel, and study their performance improvement with relays. All over the dissertation, the following assumptions are taken: i) full-duplex operation at the relays, ii) transmit and receive channel state information available at all network nodes, and iii) time-invariant, memory-less fading.Firstly, we analyze the multiple-parallel relay channel, where a single source communicates to a single destination in the presence of N parallel relays. The capacity of the channel is lower bounded by means of the achievable rates with different relaying protocols, i.e. decode-and-forward, partial decode-and-forward, compress-and-forward and linear relaying. Likewise, a capacity upper bound is provided for comparison, derived using the max-flow-min-cut Theorem. Finally, for number of relays growing to infinity, the scaling laws of all achievable rates are presented, as well as the one of the upper bound.Next, the dissertation focusses on the multi-access channel (MAC) with multiple-parallel relays. The channel consists of multiple users simultaneously communicating to a single destination in the presence of N parallel relay nodes. We bound the capacity region of the channel using, again, the max-flow-min-cut Theorem and find achievable rate regions by means of decode-and-forward, linear relaying and compress-and-forward. In addition, we analyze the asymptotic performance of the obtained achievable sum-rates, given the number of users growing without bound. Such a study allows us to grasp the impact of multi-user diversity on access networks with relays.Finally, the dissertation considers the broadcast channel (BC) with multiple parallel relays. This consists of a single source communicating to multiple receivers in the presence of N parallel relays. For the channel, we derive achievable rate regions considering: i) dirty paper encoding at the source, and ii) decode-and-forward, linear relaying and compress-and-forward, respectively, at the relays. Moreover, for linear relaying, we prove that MAC-BC duality holds. That is, the achievable rate region of the BC is equal to that of the MAC with a sum-power constraint. Using this result, the computation of the channel's weighted sum-rate with linear relaying is notably simplified. Likewise, convex resource allocation algorithms can be derived.

abstract: There are many wireless communication and networking applications that require high transmission rates and reliability with only limited resources in terms of bandwidth, power, hardware complexity etc.. Real-time video streaming, gaming and social networking are a few such examples. Over the years many problems have been addressed towards the goal of enabling such applications; however, significant challenges still remain, particularly, in the context of multi-user communications. With the motivation of addressing some of these challenges, the main focus of this dissertation is the design and analysis of capacity approaching coding schemes for several (wireless) multi-user communication scenarios. Specifically, three main themes are studied: superposition coding over broadcast channels, practical coding for binary-input binary-output broadcast channels, and signalling schemes for two-way relay channels. As the first contribution, we propose an analytical tool that allows for reliable comparison of different practical codes and decoding strategies over degraded broadcast channels, even for very low error rates for which simulations are impractical. The second contribution deals with binary-input binary-output degraded broadcast channels, for which an optimal encoding scheme that achieves the capacity boundary is found, and a practical coding scheme is given by concatenation of an outer low density parity check code and an inner (non-linear) mapper that induces desired distribution of "one" in a codeword. The third contribution considers two-way relay channels where the information exchange between two nodes takes place in two transmission phases using a coding scheme called physical-layer network coding. At the relay, a near optimal decoding strategy is derived using a list decoding algorithm, and an approximation is obtained by a joint decoding approach. For the latter scheme, an analytical approximation of the word error rate based on a union bounding technique is computed under the assumption that linear codes are employed at the two nodes exchanging data. Further, when the wireless channel is frequency selective, two decoding strategies at the relay are developed, namely, a near optimal decoding scheme implemented using list decoding, and a reduced complexity detection/decoding scheme utilizing a linear minimum mean squared error based detector followed by a network coded sequence decoder. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Electrical Engineering 2011

Abstract Lattice codes achieve AWGN capacity and naturally fit in many multi-terminal networks because of their inherited structure. Although extensive information theoretic research has been done to prove the importance of lattice codes for these networks, the progress in finding practical low-complexity lattice schemes is limited. Hence, the motivation of this thesis is to develop several methods to make lattice codes practical for communication networks. First, we propose an efficient lattice coding scheme for real-valued, full-duplex one- and two-way relay channels. Lattice decomposition, superposition, and block Markov encoding are used to propose a simple, yet near capacity achieving encoding/decoding schemes for these relay channels. By using information theoretic tools, we prove the achievable rates of these schemes, which are equal to the best known rates. Then, we construct practical, low-complexity implementations of the proposed relay schemes using low-density lattice codes. Numerical evaluation is presented and they show that our schemes achieve performance as close as 2.5dB away from theoretical limits. The effect of shaping/coding loss on the performance of relay channels is studied. Then, we propose a low complexity lattice code construction that provides high shaping and coding gains. First, integer information is encoded to shaped integers. Two methods are proposed for this task: ''Voronoi integers'' and ''non uniform integers''. These shaped integers have shaping gains over the integer lattice. Then for the second step, we present a general framework to systematically encode these integers, using any high dimensional lattice with lower-triangular generator or parity check matrices, retaining the same shaping gain. The proposed scheme can be used to shape high dimensional lattices such as low density lattice codes, LDA-lattice, etc. Comprehensive analysis is presented using low density lattice codes. By using E8 and BW16 as shaping lattices, we numerically show the Voronoi integers result in the shaping gain of these lattices, that is, as much as 0.65dB and 0.86dB. It is numerically observed that non-uniform integers have shaping gains of up to 1.25dB. These shaping operations can be implemented with less complexity than previous low density lattice codes shaping approaches and shaping gains are higher than in previously reported cases, which are in the order of 0.4dB. Lastly, we propose a low complexity practical code construction for compute-and-forward. A novel code construction called ''mixed nested lattice code construction'' is developed. This code construction uses a pair of distinct nested lattices to encode the integers where shaping is provided by a small dimensional lattice with high shaping gain and coding is performed using a high coding gain and a high dimensional lattice. This construction keeps the shaping and the coding gains of respective shaping and coding lattices. Further, we prove an existence of an isomorphism in this construction such that linear combination of lattice codes can be mapped to a linear combination of integers over a finite field. Hence, this construction can be readily used for any compute-and-forward applications. A modified LDLC decoder is proposed to estimate a linear combination of messages. Performance is numerically evaluated. / Tiivistelmä Hilakoodit saavuttavat AWGN kapasiteetin ja sopivat luonnollisesti moniin monen päätelaitteen verkkoihin niihin sisältyvän rakenteen vuoksi. Vaikka lukuisat informaatioteoreettiset tutkimustyöt todistavat hilakoodien tärkeyden näille verkoille, käytännössä alhaisen kompleksisuuden hilajärjestelmiä on vielä vähän. Näin ollen tämän tutkielman tarkoitus on kehittää useita metodeja, jotta hilakoodeista saadaan käytännöllisiä viestintäverkkoihin. Aluksi, ehdotamme tehokkaan hilakoodausjärjestelmän reaaliarvoisille, full duplexisille yksi- ja kaksisuuntaisille välittäjäkanaville. Käytämme hilan hajottamista, superpositiota ja lohko-Markov -koodausta ehdottaessamme yksinkertaiset ja siltikin kapasiteetin saavuttavat koodaus- ja dekoodausjärjestelmät näihin välityskanaviin. Käyttämällä informaatioteoreettisia työkaluja, osoitamme näiden järjestelmien saavutettavat nopeudet, jotka ovat yhtä suuret kuin parhaimmat tunnetut nopeudet. Sitten rakennamme käytännölliset ja alhaisen monimutkaisuuden toteutukset ehdotetuille välitysjärjestelmille käyttäen alhaisen tiheyden hilakoodeja. Esitämme näille järjestelmille numeeriset arvioinnit, jotka näyttävät että nämä toteutukset saavuttavat tehokkuuden, joka on 2.5dB:n päässä teoreettisista rajoista. Tutkimme muotoilu- ja koodaushäviön vaikutusta välityskanavien tehokkuuteen. Sitten, ehdotamme alhaisen monimutkaisuuden hilakoodirakenteen, joka tarjoaa korkean muotoilu- ja koodausvahvistuksen. Ensin, kokonaislukuinformaatio on koodattu muotoiltuihin kokonaislukuihin. Esitämme kaksi metodia tähän tehtävään; 'Voronoi kokonaisluvut' ja 'ei yhtenäiset kokonaisluvut'. Näillä muotoilluilla kokonaisluvuilla on muotoiluvahvistusta kokonaislukuhilalle. Toisena askeleena, esitämme yleiset puitteet systemaattiseen kokonaislukujen koodaukseen käyttäen korkeaulotteisia hiloja alhaisen kolmiogeneraattori- tai pariteettivarmistusmatriiseja, jotka säilyttävät samalla muotoiluvahvistuksen. Ehdotettua järjestelmää voidaan käyttää muotoilemaan korkeaulotteisia hiloja kuten alhaisen tiheyden hilakoodeja, LDA-hiloja, jne. Esitämme kattavan analyysin käyttäen alhaisen tiheyden hilakoodeja. Käyttämällä muotoiluhiloina E8aa ja BW16a, näytämme numeerisesti 'Voronoi kokonaislukujen' käyttämisen seurauksena saavutettavat hilojen muotoiluvahvistukset, jotka ovat jopa 0.65dB ja 0.86dB. Näytämme myös numeerisesti että 'ei yhtenäisillä kokonaisluvuilla' on muotoiluvahvistusta jopa 1.25dB. Nämä muotoiluoperaatiot voidaan toteuttaa alhaisemmalla monimutkaisuudella kuin aikaisemmat 'alhaisen tiheyden hilakoodien muotoilumenetelmät' ja muotoiluvahvistukset ovat suuremmat kuin aikaisemmin raportoidut tapaukset, jotka ovat suuruusluokaltaan 0.4dB. Viimeiseksi, ehdotamme käytännöllisen koodikonstruktion alhaisella monimutkaisuudella 'laske ja lähetä' -menetelmään. Kehitämme uuden koodikonstruktion, jota kutsumme 'sekoitetuksi sisäkkäiseksi hilakoodikonstruktioksi'. Tämä koodikonstruktio käyttää kahta eroteltavissa olevaa sisäkkäistä hilaa koodaamaan kokonaisluvut siellä, missä muotoilu tehdään pienen ulottuvuuden hiloilla korkean muotoiluvahvistuksella ja koodaus toteutetaan käyttäen korkean koodausvahvistuksen omaavaa korkeaulottuvuuksista hilaa. Tämä konstruktio säilyttää muotoilu- ja koodausvahvistukset kullekin muotoilu- ja koodaushilalle. Lisäksi, todistamme isomorfismin olemassaolon tässä konstruktiossa siten, että lineaarisen hilakoodien kombinaatio voidaan kuvata lineaarisena kokonaislukujen kombinaationa äärellisessä kunnassa. Näin ollen tätä konstruktiota voidaan helposti käyttää missä tahansa 'laske ja lähetä' -sovelluksessa. Esitämme muokatun LDLC dekooderin lineaarisen viestikombinaation estimointiin. Arvioimme tehon numeerisesti.

Dans cette thèse, les réseaux coopératifs sont étudiés sous cette hypothèse que la source est incertain par rapport le canal en opération. Dans le premier chapitre, des stratégies coopératives sont développées pour les canaux à relais simultanés (SRC) lesquelles se composent d'un ensemble de deux canaux à relais parmi lesquels le canal en opération est choisi. Cela est équivalent au canal de diffusion à relais (BRC). Les bornes sur la région de capacité de BRC général sont dérivées. Les résultats de capacité sont obtenus pour les cas particuliers du canal à relais simultané semi-dégradé et dégradé Gaussien. Dans le deuxième chapitre, le canal à relais composite est considéré où le canal est tiré aléatoirement d'un ensemble de la distribution conditionnelle. Le débit est fixé en dépit du canal actuel et la probabilité d'erreur (EP) asymptotique est caractérisée. Une nouvelle stratégie de codage sélectif (SCS) est introduit permettant aux relais de choisir -selon leur mesurage du canal – la meilleur schéma de codage entre Décoder-et-Transmettre (DF) et Comprimer-et-Transmettre (CF). Les théorèmes de codage de réseau bruit généralisées sont démontrés pour le cas de réseau unicast général où les relais utilisent soit DF soit CF. Dans le troisième chapitre, le spectre asymptotique de EP est introduit en tant que nouvelle mesure de performance pour réseaux composites. Il est démontré que chaque code avec le débit hors de la borne cut-set, abouti à EP égal à un et le spectre asymptotique de EP coïncide avec la probabilité d'outage pour les réseaux satisfaisant la converse forte. / In this thesis, cooperative networks are studied under the assumption that the source is uncertain about the channel in operation. In the first chapter, cooperative strategies are developed for simultaneous relay channels (SRC) which consist of a set of two single relay channels out of which the channel in operation is chosen. This is equivalent to the broadcast relay channel (BRC). Bounds on the capacity region of the general BRC with two helper relays are derived. Capacity results are obtained for specific cases of semi-degraded and degraded Gaussian simultaneous relay channels. In the second chapter, the composite relay channel is considered where the channel is randomly drawn from a set of conditional distributions according to a given distribution. The transmission rate is fixed regardless of the current channel and the asymptotic error probability (EP) is characterized. A novel selective coding strategy (SCS) is introduced which enables relays to select –based on their channel measurement– the best coding scheme between Compress-and-Forward (CF) and Decode-and-Forward (DF). Generalized Noisy Network Coding theorems are shown for the case of unicast general networks where the relays use either DF or CF scheme. In the third chapter, the asymptotic behavior of EP is studied for composite multiterminal networks. The asymptotic spectrum of EP is introduced as a novel performance measure for composite networks. It is shown that every code with rate outside cut-set bound, yields EP equal to one and for the networks satisfying strong converse condition, the asymptotic spectrum of EP coincides with the outage probability.

The area of cooperative communications has received tremendous research interest in recent years. This interest is not unwarranted, since cooperative communications promises the ever-so-sought after diversity and multiplexing gains typically associated with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications, without actually employing multiple antennas. In this dissertation, we consider several cooperative communication channels, and for each one of them, we develop information theoretic coding schemes and derive their corresponding performance limits. We next develop and design practical coding strategies which perform very close to the information theoretic limits. The cooperative communication channels we consider are: (a) The Gaussian relay channel, (b) the quasi-static fading relay channel, (c) cooperative multiple-access channel (MAC), and (d) the cognitive radio channel (CRC). For the Gaussian relay channel, we propose a compress-forward (CF) coding strategy based on Wyner-Ziv coding, and derive the achievable rates specifically with BPSK modulation. The CF strategy is implemented with low-density parity-check (LDPC) and irregular repeataccumulate codes and is found to operate within 0.34 dB of the theoretical limit. For the quasi-static fading relay channel, we assume that no channel state information (CSI) is available at the transmitters and propose a rateless coded protocol which uses rateless coded versions of the CF and the decode-forward (DF) strategy. We implement the protocol with carefully designed Raptor codes and show that the implementation suffers a loss of less than 10 percent from the information theoretical limit. For the MAC, we assume quasi-static fading, and consider cooperation in the low-power regime with the assumption that no CSI is available at the transmitters. We develop cooperation methods based on multiplexed coding in conjunction with rateless codes and find the achievable rates and in particular the minimum energy per bit to achieve a certain outage probability. We then develop practical coding methods using Raptor codes, which performs within 1.1 dB of the performance limit. Finally, we consider a CRC and develop a practical multi-level dirty-paper coding strategy using LDPC codes for channel coding and trellis-coded quantization for source coding. The designed scheme is found to operate within 0.78 dB of the theoretical limit. By developing practical coding strategies for several cooperative communication channels which exhibit performance close to the information theoretic limits, we show that cooperative communications not only provide great benefits in theory, but can possibly promise the same benefits when put into practice. Thus, our work can be considered a useful and necessary step towards the commercial realization of cooperative communications.