MAC with Action-Dependent State Information at One Encoder

The growing interest in action-dependent channels motivates us to extend the study of action-dependent settings, which until now focused on point-to-point models, to multiple-access channels (MACs). In this paper, we consider a two-user, state-dependent MAC, in which one of the encoders, called the informed (cognitive) encoder, is allowed to take an action that affects the formation of the channel states. Two independent messages are to be sent through the channel: 1) a common message known to both encoders and 2) a private message known only to the informed encoder. In addition, the informed encoder has access to the sequence of channel states in a noncausal manner. Our framework generalizes the previously evaluated settings of state-dependent point-to-point channels with actions and MACs with common messages. We derive a single letter characterization of the capacity region for this setting. Using this general result, we obtain and compute the capacity region for the Gaussian action-dependent MAC. The special methods used in solving the Gaussian case are then applied to obtain the capacity of the Gaussian action-dependent point-to-point channel, a problem left open and solved now. Finally, we establish some dualities between action-dependent channel coding and source coding problems. In particular, we obtain a duality equivalence between the considered MAC setting and the rate distortion model known as successive refinement with actions. This is done by developing a set of simple duality principles that enables us to successfully evaluate the outcome of one problem given the outcome of the other.