Downlink co-channel interference cancellation in multihop relay networks

In this paper, we study the use of iterative multi-user detectors for co-channel interference suppression in wireless cellular systems. We investigate the benefits of using iterative interference cancellation in the mobile receiver in the downlink scenario of traditional single-hop wireless cellular networks as well as two-hop relay networks. To illustrate these benefits, as an example we consider a receiver with a single receive antenna that is capable of detecting and cancelling a single in-band interferer that uses the same coding and modulation scheme as the desired signal. Simulation results show significant improvements with iterative interference cancellation in terms of the average system throughput and outage probability. Because the interference canceller is so effective, more aggressive frequency reuse schemes can be now considered, such as using smaller cluster sizes, using 3-sectored cells where all sectors share the same frequency band, and using non-orthogonal channels for relaying.