This paper studies vector space interference alignment for the three-user MIMO interference channel with no time or frequency diversity. The main result is a characterization of the feasibility of interference alignment in the symmetric case where all transmitters have M antennas and all receivers have N antennas. If N >= M and all users desire d transmit dimensions, then alignment is feasible if and only if (2r+1)d = N. It turns out that, just as for the 3-user parallel interference channel BT09 , the length of alignment paths captures the essence of the problem. In fact, for each feasible value of M and N the maximum alignment path length dictates both the converse and achievability arguments. One of the implications of our feasibility criterion is that simply counting equations and comparing to the number of variables does not predict feasibility. Instead, a more careful investigation of the geometry of the alignment problem is required. The necessary condition obtained by counting equations is implied by our new feasibility criterion.
For the fully connected K user wireless interference channel where the channel coefficients are time-varying and are drawn from a continuous distribution, the sum capacity is characterized as C(SNR)=K 2log(SNR)+o(log(SNR)) . Thus, the K user time-varying interference channel almost surely has K 2 degrees of freedom. Achievability is based on the idea of interference alignment. Examples are also provided of fully connected K user interference channels with constant (not time-varying) coefficients where the capacity is exactly achieved by interference alignment at all SNR values. Recent results establish the optimality of interference alignment to approach the Shannon capacity of interference networks at high SNR. However, the extent to which interference can be aligned over a finite number of signalling dimensions remains unknown. Another important concern for interference alignment schemes is the requirement of global channel knowledge. In this work we provide examples of iterative algorithms that utilize the reciprocity of wireless networks to achieve interference alignment with only local channel knowledge at each node. These algorithms also provide numerical insights into the feasibility of interference alignment that are not yet available in theory. Recent results establish the optimality of interference alignment to approach the Shannon capacity of interference networks at high SNR. However, the extent to which interference can be aligned over a finite number of signalling dimensions remains unknown. Another important concern for interference alignment schemes is the requirement of global channel knowledge. In this work, we provide examples of iterative algorithms that utilize the reciprocity of wireless networks to achieve interference alignment with only local channel knowledge at each node. These algorithms also provide numerical insights into the feasibility of interference alignment that are not yet available in theory. In this correspondence, we show that the exact number of spatial degrees of freedom (DOF) for a two user nondegenerate (full rank channel matrices) multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) Gaussian interference channel with M1, M2 antennas at transmitters 1, 2 and N1, N2 antennas at the corresponding receivers, and perfect channel knowledge at all transmitters and receivers, is min M1 + M2, N1 + M2, max(M1, N2), max(M2, N1) . A constructive achievability proof shows that zero forcing is sufficient to achieve all the available DOF on the two user MIMO interference channel. We also show through an example of a share-and-transmit scheme how the gains of transmitter cooperation may be entirely offset by the cost of enabling that cooperation so that the available DOF are not increased.