Comprehensive partial decoding approach for two-level relay networks

Partial decoding scheme is a scheme in which each relay decodes only part of the transmitted message. Obviously, the achievable rates proposed by the partial decoding scheme subsume the achievable rates proposed by the full decoding scheme. The other motivation of using partial decoding scheme is that there are some special classes of relay networks such as semi-deterministic and orthogonal relay networks such that their capacities are obtained via this scheme. The authors propose a comprehensive partial decoding scheme based on regular encoding/sliding window decoding analysis to propose a new achievable rate for two-level relay networks. In contrast with the previously proposed methods, here the authors consider all possible partial decoding states that can occur between the different parts of the messages of the source and the relays in a two-level relay network. In this way, the common and private parts of the message transmitted by the source are defined to be decoded by the appropriate relays. Moreover, in the proof, the authors take advantage of regular encoding/sliding window decoding scheme that has superiorities to regular encoding/backward decoding and irregular encoding/random partitioning, in having less delay and yielding higher rates, respectively.