On the Benefit of Cooperation in Relay Networks

Abstract: This work addresses the cooperation facilitator (CF) model, in which network nodes coordinate through a rate limited communication device. For independent multiple-access channel (MAC) encoders, the CF model is known to show significant rate benefits, even when the rate of cooperation is negligible. Specifically, the benefit in MAC sum-rate, as a function of the cooperation rate $C_{CF}$, sometimes has an infinite slope at $C_{CF}=0$. This work studies the question of whether cooperation through a CF can yield similar infinite-slope benefits when applied to internal network encoders in which dependence among MAC transmitters can be established without the help of the CF. Towards this end, this work studies the CF model when applied to relay nodes of a single-source, single-terminal, diamond network consisting of a broadcast channel followed by a MAC. In the relay channel with orthogonal receiver components, careful generalization of the partial-decode-forward/compress-forward lower bound to the CF model yields sufficient conditions for an infinite-slope benefit. Additional results include derivation of a family of diamond networks for which the infinite-slope rate-benefit derives directly from the properties of the corresponding MAC component when studied in isolation.