This paper considers a general Gaussian relay network where a source transmits a message to a destination with the help of N half-duplex relays. It proves that the information theoretic cut-set upper bound to the capacity can be achieved to within 2:021(N +2) bits with noisy network coding, thereby reducing the previously known gap. Further improved gap results are presented for more structured networks like diamond networks. It is then shown that the generalized Degrees-of-Freedom of a general Gaussian half-duplex relay network is the solution of a linear program, where the coefficients of the linear inequality constraints are proved to be the solution of several linear programs, known in graph theory as the assignment problem, for which efficient numerical algorithms exist. The optimal schedule, that is, the optimal value of the 2^N possible transmit-receive configurations states for the relays, is investigated and known results for diamond networks are extended to general relay networks. It is shown, for the case of 2 relays, that only 3 out of the 4 possible states have strictly positive probability. Extensive experimental results show that, for a general N-relay network with N<9, the optimal schedule has at most N +1 states with strictly positive probability. As an extension of a conjecture presented for diamond networks, it is conjectured that this result holds for any HD relay network and any number of relays. Finally, a 2-relay network is studied to determine the channel conditions under which selecting the best relay is not optimal, and to highlight the nature of the rate gain due to multiple relays.
@cite_14: This paper characterizes the capacity of a class of modulo additive noise relay channels, in which the relay observes a corrupted version of the noise and has a separate channel to the destination. The capacity is shown to be strictly below the cut-set bound in general and achievable using a quantize-and- forward strategy at the relay. This result confirms a conjecture by Ahlswede and Han about the capacity of channels with rate limited state information at the destination for this particular class of channels.
@cite_11: A relay channel consists of an input x_ l , a relay output y_ 1 , a channel output y , and a relay sender x_ 2 (whose transmission is allowed to depend on the past symbols y_ 1 . The dependence of the received symbols upon the inputs is given by p(y,y_ 1 |x_ 1 ,x_ 2 ) . The channel is assumed to be memoryless. In this paper the following capacity theorems are proved. 1)If y is a degraded form of y_ 1 , then C : = : !_ p(x_ 1 ,x_ 2 ) , I(X_ 1 ,X_ 2 ;Y), I(X_ 1 ; Y_ 1 |X_ 2 ) . 2)If y_ 1 is a degraded form of y , then C : = : !_ p(x_ 1 ) x_ 2 I(X_ 1 ;Y|x_ 2 ) . 3)If p(y,y_ 1 |x_ 1 ,x_ 2 ) is an arbitrary relay channel with feedback from (y,y_ 1 ) to both x_ 1 x_ 2 , then C : = : p(x_ 1 ,x_ 2 ) , I(X_ 1 ,X_ 2 ;Y),I ,(X_ 1 ;Y,Y_ 1 |X_ 2 ) . 4)For a general relay channel, C : : p(x_ 1 ,x_ 2 ) , I ,(X_ 1 , X_ 2 ;Y),I(X_ 1 ;Y,Y_ 1 |X_ 2 ) . Superposition block Markov encoding is used to show achievability of C , and converses are established. The capacities of the Gaussian relay channel and certain discrete relay channels are evaluated. Finally, an achievable lower bound to the capacity of the general relay channel is established.
@cite_8: 
The RC model was first introduced by van der Meulen @cite_8 in 1971. Despite the significant research efforts, the capacity of the general RC is still unknown. In their seminal work @cite_11 , Cover and El Gamal proposed a general outer bound, now known as the max-flow min-cut outer bound or cut-set for short, and two achievable schemes: decode-and-forward (DF) and compress-and-forward (CF). The cut-set outer bound was shown to be tight for the degraded RC, the reversely degraded RC and the semi-deterministic RC @cite_11 , but it is not tight in general @cite_14 .