Approximate Sum Rate for Integer-Forcing Receiver

The computation of the achievable sum rate for integer-forcing (IF) linear receivers requires the search for the shortest set of linearly independent lattice vectors (SIVP). Since SIVP is considered an NP-hard problem, we propose two approximations to the IF achievable sum rate. The first approximation is suitable for systems with two antennas at both transmitter and receiver (2 × 2 arrays) and is based on the analysis of the Gauss-Lagrange algorithm. The second approximation considers n × n array systems and is based on Minkowski's second theorem. Assuming a block-fading channel with Rayleigh distribution, we have derived the exact probability density function of both approximations. We have used these results to obtain the mean sum-rate, outage probability, and outage rate for uncorrelated fading channels. For the second approximation, the effect of channel correlation on these metrics was also analyzed. An exhaustive series of simulations have been conducted to assess the tightness and robustness of both solutions.