Interference Management of Inband Underlay Device-toDevice Communication in 5G Cellular Networks

The explosive growth of data traffic demands, emanating from smart mobile devices and bandwidth-consuming applications on the cellular network poses the need to drastically modify the cellular network architecture. A challenge faced by the network operators is the inability of the finite spectral resources to support the growing data traffic. The Next Generation Network (NGN) is expected to meet defined requirements such as massively connecting billions of devices with heterogeneous applications and services through enhanced mobile broadband networks, which provides higher data rates with improved network reliability and availability, lower end-to-end latency and increased energy efficiency. Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is one of the several emerging technologies that has been proposed to support NGN in meeting these aforementioned requirements. D2D communication leverages the proximity of users to provide direct communication with or without traversing the base station. Hence, the integration of D2D communication into cellular networks provides potential gains in terms of throughput, energy efficiency, network capacity and spectrum efficiency. D2D communication underlaying a cellular network provides efficient utilisation of the scarce spectral resources, however, there is an introduction of interference emanating from the reuse of cellular channels by D2D pairs. Hence, this dissertation focuses on the technical challenge with regards to interference management in underlay D2D communication. In order to tackle this challenge to be able to exploit the potentials of D2D communication, there is the need to answer some important research questions concerning the problem. Thus, the study aims to find out how cellular channels can be efficiently allocated to D2D pairs for reuse as an underlay to cellular network, and how mode selection and power control approaches influence the degree of interference caused by D2D pairs to cellular users. Also, the research study continues to determine how the quality of D2D communication can be maintained with factors such as bad channel quality or increased distance. In addressing these research questions, resource management techniques of mode selection, power control, relay selection and channel allocation are applied to minimise the interference caused by D2D pairs when reusing cellular channels to guarantee the Quality of Service (QoS) of cellular users, while optimally improving the number of permitted D2D pairs to reuse channels. The concept of Open loop power control scheme is examined in D2D communication underlaying cellular network. The performance of the fractional open loop power control components on SINR is studied. The simulation results portrayed that the conventional open loop power control method provides increased compensation for the path loss with higher D2D transmit power when compared with the fractional open loop power control method. Furthermore, the problem of channel allocation to minimise interference is modelled in two system model scenarios, consisting of cellular users coexisting with D2D pairs with or without relay assistance. The channel allocation problem is solved as an assignment problem by using a proposed heuristic channel allocation, random channel allocation, Kuhn-Munkres (KM) and Gale-Shapley (GS) algorithms. A comparative performance evaluation for the algorithms are carried out in the two system model scenarios, and the results indicated that D2D communication with relay assistance outperformed the conventional D2D communication without relay assistance. This concludes that the introduction of relay-assisted D2D communication can improve the quality of a network while utilising the available spectral resources without additional infrastructure deployment costs. The research work can be extended to apply an effective relay selection approach for a user mobility scenario

Recent Advances in Cellular D2D Communications

Device-to-device (D2D) communications have attracted a great deal of attention from researchers in recent years. It is a promising technique for offloading local traffic from cellular base stations by allowing local devices, in physical proximity, to communicate directly with each other. Furthermore, through relaying, D2D is also a promising approach to enhancing service coverage at cell edges or in black spots. However, there are many challenges to realizing the full benefits of D2D. For one, minimizing the interference between legacy cellular and D2D users operating in underlay mode is still an active research issue. With the 5th generation (5G) communication systems expected to be the main data carrier for the Internet-of-Things (IoT) paradigm, the potential role of D2D and its scalability to support massive IoT devices and their machine-centric (as opposed to human-centric) communications need to be investigated. New challenges have also arisen from new enabling technologies for D2D communications, such as non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and blockchain technologies, which call for new solutions to be proposed. This edited book presents a collection of ten chapters, including one review and nine original research works on addressing many of the aforementioned challenges and beyond

Multiple resource reuse for device-to-device communication in future cellular networks

Aufgrund der stärkeren Verbreitung neuer mobiler Anwendungen, z.B. Autonomes Fahren, automatisierte Prozesssteuerung, intelligente Städte / Wohnen und taktiles Internet, nimmt - die Anzahl und Dichte von Geräten, die drahtlose Verbindungen erfordern, immer weiter zu. Dies erfordert effizientere Verfahren zur Nutzung des verfügbaren Frequenzspektrums für zellulare Netze. Um dieser Herausforderung zu begegnen, wurden Ansätze, wie die gemeinsame Nutzung von Frequenzen, vorgeschlagen, um die gesamte spektrale Effizienz zu verbessern. Die Device-to-Device Kommunikation (D2D) mit paralleler Übertragung zu einem zellularen Netz bietet eine Verbesserung der spektralen Effizienz durch die verstärkte gemeinsame Nutzung des verfügbaren zellularen Spektrums. Mit D2D kommunizieren Geräte in unmittelbarer Nähe direkt miteinander ohne oder mit nur einer minimalen Kontrolle über das Mobilfunknetz. Das 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) unterstützt durch Standardisierung die Integration von D2D in Mobilfunknetze, um die spektralen Effizienzgewinne bei der gemeinsamen Nutzung von Frequenzen unter Gewährleistung der Quality of Service (QoS) zu realisieren. Die Interferenzen zwischen D2D und zellularen Benutzern müssen jedoch während der gemeinsamen Nutzung des Spektrums kontrolliert werden, um diese Gewinne im Netzwerk zu erhalten. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht Lösungen, mit denen das Frequenzspektrum des Mobilfunknetzes mit D2D-Benutzern geteilt werden kann, welche sowohl die spektrale Effizienz maximieren als auch die QoS-Anforderungen aller Benutzer erfüllen (in Bezug auf das Signal-zu-Rausch-plus-Interferenz Verhältnis (SINR)). Die vorliegende Arbeit gliedert sich in zwei Teile: eine analytische und eine algorithmische Studie. Zunächst untersucht die analytische Studie den Ansatz für ein Interferenzmanagement, in welchem mehrere D2D-Benutzer das zellulare Spektrum gemeinsam nutzen. Dabei wird die Zuteilung einer einheitlichen Interferenzleistung (UIP) vorgeschlagen - ein Verfahren, bei dem alle D2D-Benutzer mit gleicher Interferenz an der Basisstation (BS) beitragen. Dieses Schema wird auf ein Szenario einer einzelnen Zelle angewendet, welches sehr positive Ergebnisse bei der Verbesserung der spektralen Effizienz erzielt, obwohl einige D2D-Benutzer ihre SINR-Schwellenwerte nicht erreichen können. Eine wesentliche Erkenntnis aus der analytischen Studie ist, dass eine räumliche Trennung zwischen Benutzern, die das Spektrum gemeinsam nutzen, wichtig ist, um ihre gegenseitige Beeinflussung zu minimieren. Die algorithmische Studie konzentriert sich daher auf die Auswahl geeigneter D2D-Benutzern. Zunächst werden räumliche Auswahlkriterien formuliert mit dem Ziel, mehrere D2D-Benutzer zu identifizieren, die das Spektrum eines bestimmten Mobilfunkbenutzers gemeinsam nutzen können, um die spektrale Effizienz zu maximieren, während alle Benutzer ihre SINR-Schwellenwerte erreichen. Danach werden basierend auf diesen Kriterien zwei Auswahlalgorithmen entwickelt. Der erste Algorithmus wählt opportunistisch D2D-Benutzer aus, die bei bestimmten Auswahlinstanzen die geringste Störung für andere das Spektrum gemeinsam nutzende Benutzer verursachen. Der zweite Algorithmus wählt zufällig alle D2D-Benutzer aus, die räumliche von anderen Benutzern getrennt sind, jedoch das Spektrum gemeinsam nutzen. Beide Algorithmen werden mit sehr positiven Ergebnissen durch Simulationen in einem Szenario einer einzelnen Zelle mit einer unterschiedlichen Anzahl von Benutzern vorgestellt. In einem Szenario mit mehreren Zellen, in welchem die Interferenz zwischen den Zellen die Leistungsfähigkeit beeinträchtigt, werden Verbesserungen an beiden Algorithmen vorgestellt, um die festgelegten Ziele zu erreichen. Diese Verbesserungen passen die Auswahlkriterien an, um: 1) keine D2D-Benutzer mit Zellenkante auszuwählen und 2) die Auswirkungen der gemeinsamen Nutzung des Frequenzspektrums zwischen benachbarten Zellen zu berücksichtigen. Die Arbeit zeigt deutlich, dass mithilfe eines geeigneten Auswahlkriteriums mehrere D2D Nutzer in der Lage sind, die gemeinsame Frequenzressource mit zellularen Nutzern zu teilen mit Erhöhung der gesamten spektralen Effizienz und Beibehaltung der QoS Anforderungen aller Nutzer. Die hierbei erbrachten Erkenntnisse können zusammen mit den vorhandenen Ergebnissen als Ausgangspunkt für weitere akademische Forschung sowie einer praktischen Anwendung dienen.Owing to the further proliferation of new mobile applications, e.g. autonomous driving, automated process control, smart cities/homes, and tactile internet, the number and density of devices requiring wireless connectivity continue to increase. This demands ever more efficient methods for utilizing the available frequency spectrum for cellular networks. To counter this challenge, approaches like spectrum sharing have been proposed as enablers to improve the overall spectral efficiency. Device to device communication (D2D) as an underlaying transmission to the cellular network presents spectral efficiency improvements through the increased sharing of the available cellular spectrum. In D2D, devices in close proximity communicate directly with each other having either minimal or no control from the cellular network. The third generation partnership project (3GPP) supports, through standardization, the integration of D2D within cellular networks in order to realize the spectral efficiency gains during spectrum sharing and user quality of service (QoS) guarantees. However, the interference between D2D and cellular users during spectrum sharing must be controlled to get these gains in the network. This thesis studies the solutions through which the cellular network's frequency spectrum can be shared with D2D users to concurrently maximize the spectral efficiency and achieve all users' QoS requirements (in terms of threshold signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR)). The thesis is divided into two parts: an analytical study and an algorithmic study. First, the analytical study evaluates the framework for interference management when several D2D users share the cellular network's spectrum. Therein, uniform interference power (UIP) allocation -- a scheme where all D2D users contribute equal interference at the base station (BS), is proposed. This scheme is applied to a single-cell scenario with very positive results in improving spectral efficiency although some D2D users are unable to achieve their threshold SINRs. The main lesson from the analytical study is that spatial separation between users sharing spectrum is important to minimize their mutual interference. So the algorithmic study focuses on D2D-users selection. First, spatial selection criteria are formulated with the objective of identifying multiple D2D users that can share a given cellular user's spectrum to maximize spectral efficiency while all users achieve their threshold SINRs. Thereafter, based on these criteria, two selection algorithms are developed. The first algorithm opportunistically selects D2D users causing the least interference, at given selection instances, to other users sharing the spectrum. The second algorithm randomly selects any D2D users meeting the minimal required spatial separation from other users sharing the spectrum. Both algorithms are presented with very positive results in simulations that consider a single-cell scenario with varying number of users. In a multi-cell scenario, where the experienced inter-cell interference degrades performance, enhancements to both algorithms are applied to achieve the set objectives. These enhancements adapt the selection criteria to: $1$) not select cell-edge D2D users and $2$) take into account the effects of spectrum sharing between neighbouring cells. The thesis studies clearly showed that, using appropriate selection criteria, multiple D2D users can share a specific cellular user's spectrum resources to improve the network's spectral efficiency and achieve all users' QoS requirements. These findings together with other existing results on D2D spectrum resource reuse can be the starting point for further academic research and practical implementation