MIMO Gaussian Bidirectional Broadcast Channels with Common Messages

In this work, the MIMO Gaussian bidirectional broadcast channel (BBC) with common messages is studied. The problem is motivated by the concept of bidirectional relaying in a three-node network, where a half-duplex relay node establishes a bidirectional communication between two other nodes using a decode-and-forward protocol and thereby adds an own multicast message to the communication. The capacity region of the broadcast phase is derived and the corresponding transmit covariance matrix optimization problem is analyzed in detail. Thereby, it is shown that the transmit covariance optimization problem is strongly connected to the corresponding one of the MIMO Gaussian BBC without common messages. In particular, this knowledge can be exploited to transfer results such as optimal transmit strategies from one scenario to the other one.