Achievable rates for the three user cooperative multiple access channel

For a three user Gaussian multiple access channel (MAC), we propose a new superposition block Markov encoding based cooperation scheme. Our scheme allows the three users to simultaneously cooperate both in pairs, and collectively, by dividing the transmitted messages into sub-messages intended for each cooperating partner. The proposed encoding and decoding at the transmitters take into account the relative qualities of the cooperation links between the transmitters. We obtain and evaluate the achievable rate region based on our encoding strategy, and compare it with the achievable rates for the two user cooperative MAC. We demonstrate that the added diversity by the presence of the third user improves the region of achievable rates, and this improvement is especially significant as far as the sum rate of the system is concerned.