On the Maximum Achievable Sum-Rate of Interfering Two-Way Relay Channels

Hierarchical networks can provide very high data rates to multiple mobile stations (MSs) through a dense network of fixed relay nodes (RNs) fed by few hub base stations (HBSs). In order to achieve high spectral efficiencies RNs can act as two-way RNs. However the dense RN deployment gives rise to high co-channel interference (CCI) that limits sum-rate performance. In this letter we consider a simple hierarchical network consisting of an HBS with two highly directional antennas communicating with two MSs via two interfering two-way RNs. To mitigate CCI and boost sum-rates we propose a two-way relaying strategy based on AF combined with Network MIMO processing which is applied over the concatenation of the backhaul and access network channels. We compare our proposed strategy with a baseline DF approach and we show that it performs significantly better when CCI is dominant.