Network simplification: the Gaussian diamond network with Multiple Antennas

We consider the N-relay Gaussian diamond network when the source and the destination have ns ≥ 2 and nd ≥ 2 antennas respectively. We show that when ns = nd = 2 and when the individual MISO channels from the source to each relay and the SIMO channels from each relay to the destination have the same capacity, there exists a two relay sub-network that achieves approximately all the capacity of the network. To prove this result, we establish a simple relation between the joint entropies of three Gaussian random variables, which is not implied by standard Shannon-type entropy inequalities.1