Achievable Rate Improvement Using Common Message Decoding for Multicell Networks

The performance of a multicell wireless network is often limited by intercell interference. This paper considers the use of common-private message splitting at the transmitter and common-message decoding at the receiver for intercell interference mitigation. For a downlink multicell system with multiple antennas at the base-stations and single antenna at the mobiles, we utilize a heuristic SDP-relaxation-based strategy proposed in our previous work to determine the optimal beamforming vectors for both common and private messages, and propose a new algorithm to numerically characterize the improvement in the achievable rates with common-message decoding. Simulation results show that common message decoding can significantly improve the minimum achievable rate for cell-edge users when base-stations are close in distance to each other.