Successive integer-forcing and its sum-rate optimality

Integer-forcing receivers generalize traditional linear receivers for the multiple-input multiple-output channel by decoding integer-linear combinations of the transmitted streams, rather then the streams themselves. Previous works have shown that the additional degree of freedom in choosing the integer coefficients enables this receiver to approach the performance of maximum-likelihood decoding in various scenarios. Nonetheless, even for the optimal choice of integer coefficients, the additive noise at the equalizer's output is still correlated. In this work we study a variant of integer-forcing, termed successive integer-forcing, that exploits these noise correlations to improve performance. This scheme is the integer-forcing counterpart of successive interference cancellation for traditional linear receivers. Similarly to the latter, we show that successive integer-forcing is capacity achieving when it is possible to optimize the rate allocation to the different streams. In comparison to standard successive interference cancellation receivers, the successive integer-forcing receiver offers more possibilities for capacity achieving rate tuples, and in particular, ones that are more balanced.