Broadcast- and MAC-Aware Coding Strategies for Multiple User Information Embedding

Multiple user information embedding is concerned with embedding several messages into the same host signal. This paper presents several implementable dirty-paper-coding (DPC)-based schemes for multiple user information embedding, through emphasizing their tight relationship with conventional multiple user information theory. We first show that depending on the targeted application and on whether the different messages are asked to have different robustness and transparency requirements or not, multiple user information embedding parallels one of the well-known multiuser channels with state information available at the transmitter. The focus is on the Gaussian broadcast channel (GBC) and the Gaussian multiple access channel (GMAC). For each of these channels, two practically feasible transmission schemes are compared. The first approach consists in a straightforward—rather intuitive—superimposition of DPC schemes. The second consists in a joint design of these DPC schemes. This joint approach heavily relies on a recent work by Kim in which the authors extend the single-user Costa's DPC to the multiple user case. The results in this paper extend the practical implementations quantization index modulation (QIM), distortion-compensated QIM (DC-QIM), and scalar Costa scheme (SCS) that have been originally conceived for one user to the multiple user case. After presenting the key features of the joint design within the context of structured scalar codebooks, we broaden our view to discuss the framework of more general lattice-based (vector) codebooks and show that the gap to full performance can be bridged up using finite dimensional lattice codebooks. Performance evaluations, including bit error rates (BERs) and achievable rate region curves are provided for both methods, illustrating the improvements brought by a joint design.