Characterization of the Structure of General Interference Functions

This paper provides a theoretical framework for the analysis of interference-coupled multiuser systems. Interference is characterized by a set of axioms defining some fundamental properties. The generality of this approach allows for a wide range of potential applications, including adaptive receive strategies and worst-case designs. One main result is to show that every interference function has a max-min and a min-max representation over parameter-dependent elementary interference functions. The analysis of these elementary components provides new insight into the structure of general interference functions. In particular, every interference function can be interpreted as an optimum over a closed set with certain monotonicity properties. Under certain conditions this can be interpreted as an optimization of a network utility/cost over a multiuser QoS region. So the analysis of interference functions is closely connected with the analysis of multiuser QoS regions. The proposed framework provides a better general understanding of cross-layer optimization and resource allocation in the presence of interference.