Interference in wireless communications
is traditionally treated as a cause of performance degradation. Whilst from a
statistical viewpoint this is entirely justified, this article discusses
scenarios where the interfering signal enhances the desired signal’s useful
power on an instantaneous basis and provides an unexplored source of additional
signal power.
The potential of harvesting this energy,
which naturally exists in the communication system, is shown to be readily available
in downlink systems where interference can be predicted. The main concept
discussed is that instead of using knowledge of the interference to cancel,
eliminate or avoid it, it is potentially more fruitful to use this knowledge to
manipulate and make use of the interference towards the system’s advantage. A significant source
of useful signal power, which with conventional transmission techniques is left
unexploited, can be used to improve the radio systems’ performance and achieve
reliable power-efficient communications where performance benefits are yielded
without the need to increase the average transmitted power.
