On the AWGN MAC With Imperfect Feedback

New achievable rate regions are derived for the two-user additive white Gaussian multiple-access channel with noisy feedback. The regions exhibit the following two properties. Irrespective of the (finite) Gaussian feedback-noise variances, the regions include rate points that lie outside the no-feedback capacity region, and when the feedback-noise variances tend to zero the regions converge to the perfect-feedback capacity region. The new achievable regions also apply to the partial-feedback setting where one of the transmitters has a noisy feedback link and the other transmitter has no feedback at all. Again, irrespective of the (finite) noise variance on the feedback link, the regions include rate points that lie outside the no-feedback capacity region. Moreover, in the case of perfect partial feedback, i.e., where the only feedback link is noise-free, for certain channel parameters the new regions include rate points that lie outside the Cover-Leung region. This answers in the negative the question posed by van der Meulen as to whether the Cover-Leung region equals the capacity region of the Gaussian multiple-access channel with perfect partial feedback. Finally, we propose new achievable regions also for a setting where the receiver is cognizant of the realizations of the noise sequences on the feedback links.