Partial Interference Alignment for K-user MIMO Interference Channels

In this paper, we consider a Partial Interference Alignment and Interference Detection (PIAID) design for K-user quasi-static MIMO interference channels with discrete constellation inputs. Each transmitter has M antennas and transmits L independent data streams to the desired receiver with N receive antennas. We focus on the case where not all K − 1 interfering transmitters can be aligned at every receiver. As a result, there will be residual interference at each receiver that cannot be aligned. Each receiver detects and cancels the residual interference based on the constellation map. However, there is a window of unfavorable interference profile at the receiver for Interference Detection (ID). In this paper, we propose a low complexity Partial Interference Alignment scheme in which we dynamically select the user set for IA so as to create a favorable interference profile for ID at each receiver. We first derive the average symbol error rate (SER) by taking into account of the non-Guassian residual interference due to discrete constellation. Using graph theory, we then devise a low complexity user set selection algorithm for the PIAID scheme, which minimizes the asymptotically tight bound for the average end-to-end SER performance. Moreover, we substantially simplify interference detection at the receiver using Semi-Definite Relaxation (SDR) techniques. It is shown that the SER performance of the proposed PIAID scheme has significant gain compared with various conventional baseline solutions. The authors are with the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering (ECE), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong.