Cognition and Cooperation in Interfered Multiple Access Channels

In this work, we investigate a three-user cognitive communication network where a primary two-user multiple access channel suffers interference from a secondary point-to-point channel, sharing the same medium. While the point-to-point channel transmitter—transmitter 3—causes an interference at the primary multiple access channel receiver, we assume that the primary channel transmitters—transmitters 1 and 2—do not cause any interference at the point-to-point receiver. It is assumed that one of the multiple access channel transmitters has cognitive capabilities and cribs causally from the other multiple access channel transmitter. Furthermore, we assume that the cognitive transmitter knows the message of transmitter 3 in a non-causal manner, thus introducing the three-user multiple access cognitive Z-interference channel. We obtain inner and outer bounds on the capacity region of the this channel for both causal and strictly causal cribbing cognitive encoders. We further investigate different variations and aspects of the channel, referring to some previously studied cases. Attempting to better characterize the capacity region we look at the vertex points of the capacity region where each one of the transmitters tries to achieve its maximal rate. Moreover, we find the capacity region of a special case of a certain kind of more-capable multiple access cognitive Z-interference channels. In addition, we study the case of full unidirectional cooperation between the 2 multiple access channel encoders. Finally, since direct cribbing allows us full cognition in the case of continuous input alphabets, we study the case of partial cribbing, i.e., when the cribbing is performed via a deterministic function.