Computation Over Wide-Band Multi-Access Channels: Achievable Rates Through Sub-Function Allocation

Future networks are expected to connect an enormous number of nodes wirelessly using wide-band transmission. This brings great challenges. To avoid collecting a large amount of data from the massive number of nodes, computation over multi-access channel (CoMAC) is proposed to compute a desired function over the air utilizing the signal-superposition property of wireless channel. Due to frequency-selective fading, wide-band CoMAC is more challenging and has never been studied before. In this paper, we propose the use of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) in wide-band CoMAC to transmit functions in a similar way to bit sequences through division, allocation, and reconstruction of functions. An achievable rate without any adaptive resource allocation is derived. To prevent a vanishing computation rate from the increase in the number of nodes, a novel sub-function allocation of sub-carriers is derived. Furthermore, we formulate an optimization problem considering power allocation. A sponge-squeezing algorithm adapted from the classical water-filling algorithm is proposed to solve the optimal power allocation problem. The improved computation rate of the proposed framework and the corresponding allocation has been verified through both theoretical analysis and simulation.