Asymmetric degrees of freedom of the full-duplex MIMO 3-way channel

In this paper, we characterize the asymmetric total degrees of freedom (DoF) of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) 3-way channel. Each node has a separate-antenna full-duplex MIMO transceiver with a different number of antennas, where each antenna can be configured for either signal transmission or reception. Each node has two unicast messages to be delivered to the two other nodes. We first derive upper bounds on the total DoF of the system. Cut-set bounds in conjunction with genie-aided bounds are derived to characterize the achievable total DoF. Afterwards, we analytically derive the optimal number of transmit and receive antennas at each node to maximize the total DoF of the system, subject to the total number of antennas at each node. Finally, the achievable schemes are constructed. The proposed schemes are mainly based on zero-forcing and null-space transmit beamforming. © 2016 IEEE.