Soft-Decoding-Based Strategies for Relay and Interference Channels: Analysis and Achievable Rates Using LDPC Codes

We provide a rigorous mathematical analysis of two communication strategies: soft decode-and-forward (soft-DF) for relay channels and soft partial interference-cancelation (soft-IC) for interference channels. Both strategies involve soft estimation, which assists the decoding process. We consider LDPC codes, not because of their practical benefits, but because of their analytic tractability, which enables an asymptotic analysis similar to random coding methods of information theory. Unlike some works on the closely-related demodulate-and-forward, we assume non-memoryless, code-structure-aware estimation. With soft-DF, we develop simultaneous density evolution to bound the decoding error probability at the destination. This result applies to erasure relay channels. In one variant of soft-DF, the relay applies Wyner-Ziv coding to enhance its communication with the destination, borrowing from compress-and-forward. To analyze soft-IC, we adapt existing techniques for iterative multiuser detection, and focus on binary-input additive white Gaussian noise interference channels. We prove that optimal point-to-point codes are unsuitable for soft-IC, as well as for all strategies that apply partial decoding to improve upon single-user detection and multiuser detection, including Han-Kobayashi.