Degrees of Freedom for MIMO Z-Interference Channels with Reconfigurable Antennas in the Absence of CSIT

Abstract

In this paper, we derive the achievable degrees of freedom (DoF) for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Z-interference channels (Z-IC) with reconfigurable antennas at the receivers, assuming that channel state information is not available at the transmitters. We propose a new linear scheme to align interfering signals and to decode desired signals through the designed preset mode switching pattern of reconfigurable antennas at the receivers. The key idea of our scheme is to use interfering signals as a side information at the interfered receiver by being silent at the corresponding transmitter during some time slots. Consequently, it is shown that the reconfigurable antennas at the receivers can bring a DoF gain if the number of preset modes is greater than the number of RF chains at the receivers.