  Characterizing the global maximum of weighted sum-rate (WSR) for the K-user
Gaussian interference channel (GIC), with the interference treated as Gaussian
noise, is a key problem in wireless communication. However, due to the users'
mutual interference, this problem is in general non-convex and thus cannot be
solved directly by conventional convex optimization techniques. In this paper,
by jointly utilizing the monotonic optimization and rate profile techniques, we
develop a new framework to obtain the globally optimal power control and/or
beamforming solutions to the WSR maximization problems for the GICs with
single-antenna transmitters and single-antenna receivers (SISO), single-antenna
transmitters and multi-antenna receivers (SIMO), or multi-antenna transmitters
and single-antenna receivers (MISO). Different from prior work, this paper
proposes to maximize the WSR in the achievable rate region of the GIC directly
by exploiting the facts that the achievable rate region is a "normal" set and
the users' WSR is a "strictly increasing" function over the rate region.
Consequently, the WSR maximization is shown to be in the form of monotonic
optimization over a normal set and thus can be solved globally optimally by the
existing outer polyblock approximation algorithm. However, an essential step in
the algorithm hinges on how to efficiently characterize the intersection point
on the Pareto boundary of the achievable rate region with any prescribed "rate
profile" vector. This paper shows that such a problem can be transformed into a
sequence of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) feasibility
problems, which can be solved efficiently by existing techniques. Numerical
results validate that the proposed algorithms can achieve the global WSR
maximum for the SISO, SIMO or MISO GIC.
