Rate Regions for Relay Broadcast Channels

A partially cooperative relay broadcast channel (RBC) is a three-node network with one source node and two destination nodes (destinations 1 and 2) where destination 1 can act as a relay to assist destination 2. Inner and outer bounds on the capacity region of the discrete memoryless partially cooperative RBC are obtained. When the relay function is disabled, the inner bound reduces to an inner bound on the capacity region of broadcast channels that is at least as large as Marton's inner bound. The outer bound reduces to a new outer bound on the capacity region of broadcast channels that generalizes an outer bound of Marton to include a common message, and that generalizes an outer bound of Gel'fand and Pinsker to general discrete memoryless broadcast channels. Our proof for this outer bound simplifies the proof of Gel'fand and Pinsker that was based on a recursive approach. Four classes of RBCs are studied in detail. For the partially cooperative RBC with degraded message sets, inner and outer bounds are obtained. For the semideterministic partially cooperative RBC and the orthogonal partially cooperative RBC, the capacity regions are established. For the parallel partially cooperative RBC with unmatched degraded subchannels, the capacity region is established for the case of degraded message sets. The capacity is also established when the source node has only a private message for destination 2, i.e., the channel reduces to a parallel relay channel with unmatched degraded subchannels.