Interference Alignment and Degrees of Freedom Region of Cellular Sigma Channel

Abstract

We investigate the Degrees of Freedom (DoF) Region of a cellular network, where the cells can have overlapping areas. Within an overlapping area, the mobile users can access multiple base stations. We consider a case where there are two base stations both equipped with multiple antennas. The mobile stations are all equipped with single antenna and each mobile station can belong to either a single cell or both cells. We completely characterize the DoF region for the uplink channel assuming that global channel state information is available at the transmitters. The achievability scheme is based on interference alignment at the base stations.