Game-theoretic Resource Allocation Methods for Device-to-Device (D2D) Communication

Device-to-device (D2D) communication underlaying cellular networks allows mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to use the licensed spectrum allocated to cellular services for direct peer-to-peer transmission. D2D communication can use either one-hop transmission (i.e., in D2D direct communication) or multi-hop cluster-based transmission (i.e., in D2D local area networks). The D2D devices can compete or cooperate with each other to reuse the radio resources in D2D networks. Therefore, resource allocation and access for D2D communication can be treated as games. The theories behind these games provide a variety of mathematical tools to effectively model and analyze the individual or group behaviors of D2D users. In addition, game models can provide distributed solutions to the resource allocation problems for D2D communication. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the applications of game-theoretic models to study the radio resource allocation issues in D2D communication. The article also outlines several key open research directions.Comment: Accepted. IEEE Wireless Comms Mag. 201

Separation Framework: An Enabler for Cooperative and D2D Communication for Future 5G Networks

Soaring capacity and coverage demands dictate that future cellular networks need to soon migrate towards ultra-dense networks. However, network densification comes with a host of challenges that include compromised energy efficiency, complex interference management, cumbersome mobility management, burdensome signaling overheads and higher backhaul costs. Interestingly, most of the problems, that beleaguer network densification, stem from legacy networks' one common feature i.e., tight coupling between the control and data planes regardless of their degree of heterogeneity and cell density. Consequently, in wake of 5G, control and data planes separation architecture (SARC) has recently been conceived as a promising paradigm that has potential to address most of aforementioned challenges. In this article, we review various proposals that have been presented in literature so far to enable SARC. More specifically, we analyze how and to what degree various SARC proposals address the four main challenges in network densification namely: energy efficiency, system level capacity maximization, interference management and mobility management. We then focus on two salient features of future cellular networks that have not yet been adapted in legacy networks at wide scale and thus remain a hallmark of 5G, i.e., coordinated multipoint (CoMP), and device-to-device (D2D) communications. After providing necessary background on CoMP and D2D, we analyze how SARC can particularly act as a major enabler for CoMP and D2D in context of 5G. This article thus serves as both a tutorial as well as an up to date survey on SARC, CoMP and D2D. Most importantly, the article provides an extensive outlook of challenges and opportunities that lie at the crossroads of these three mutually entangled emerging technologies.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 201

Outage Analysis of Energy Harvested Relay-Aided Device-to-Device Communications in Nakagami Channel

In this paper, we obtain a low-complexity closed-form formula for the outage probability of the energy-harvested decode-and-forward (DF) relay-aided underlay Device-to-device (D2D) communications in Nakagami fading channel. By proposing a new idea which finds the power splitting factor in simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) energy-harvesting system such that the transmit power of the relay node in the second time slot is fixed in a pre-defined value, the obtained closed-form expression is valid for both energy-harvested and non-energy-harvested scenarios. This formula is based on n-point generalized Gauss-Laguerre and m-point Gauss-Legendre solutions. It is shown that n is more effective than m for reducing the formula complexity. In addition to a good agreement between the simulation results and numerical analysis based on normalized mean square error (NMSE), it is indicated that (n, m)=(1, 4) and (n, m)=(1, 2) are the appropriate choices, respectively for 0.5≤ µ <0.7 and µ ≥0.7, where µ is the fading factor. As shown in this investigation, increasing the average distance between D2D pairs and cellular user (lower interference), is the reason for decreasing the outage probability. Furthermore, it is clear that increasing the Nakagami fading factor is the reason for decreasing the outage probability

Stochastic Geometry Based Performance Study in 5G Wireless Networks

As the complexity of modern cellular networks continuously increases along with the evolution of technologies and the quick explosion of mobile data traffic, conventional large scale system level simulations and analytical tools become either too complicated or less tractable and accurate. Therefore, novel analytical models are actively pursued. In recent years, stochastic geometry models have been recognized as powerful tools to analyze the key performance metrics of cellular networks. In this dissertation, stochastic geometry based analytical models are developed to analyze the performance of some key technologies proposed for 5G mobile networks. Particularly, Device-to-Device (D2D) communication, Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and ultra-dense networks (UDNs) are investigated and analyzed by stochastic geometry models, more specifically, Poisson Point Process (PPP) models. D2D communication enables direct communication between mobile users in proximity to each other bypassing base station (BS). Embedding D2D communication into existing cellular networks brings many benefits such as improving spectrum efficiency, decreasing power energy consumption, and enabling novel location-based services. However, these benefits may not be fully exploited if the co-channel interference among D2D users and cellular users is not properly tackled. In this dissertation, various frequency reuse and power control schemes are proposed, aiming at mitigating the interference between D2D users and conventional cellular users. The performance gain of proposed schemes is analyzed on a system modeled by a 2-tier PPP and validated by numerical simulations. NOMA is a promising radio access technology for 5G cellular networks. Different with widely applied orthogonal multiple access (OMA) such as orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA), NOMA allows multiple users to use the same frequency/time resource and offers many advantages such as improving spectral efficiency, enhancing connectivity, providing higher cell-edge throughput, and reducing transmission latency. Although some initial performance analysis has been done on NOMA with single cell scenario, the system level performance of NOMA in a multi-cell scenario is not investigated in existing work. In this dissertation, analytical frameworks are developed to evaluate the performance of a wireless network with NOMA on both downlink and uplink. Distinguished from existing publications on NOMA, the framework developed in this dissertation is the first one that takes inter-cell interference into consideration. UDN is another key technology for 5G wireless networks to achieve high capacity and coverage. Due to the existence of line-of-sight (LoS)/non-line-of-sight (NLoS) propagation and bounded path loss behavior in UDN networks, the tractability of the original PPP model diminishes when analyzing the performance of UDNs. Therefore, a dominant BS (base station)-based approximation model is developed in this dissertation. By applying reasonable mathematical approximations, the tractability of the PPP model is preserved and the closed form solution can be derived. The numerical results demonstrate that the developed analytical model is accurate in a wide range of network densities. The analysis conducted in this dissertation demonstrates that stochastic geometry models can serve as powerful tools to analyze the performance of 5G technologies in a dense wireless network deployment. The frameworks developed in this dissertation provide general yet powerful analytical tools that can be readily extended to facilitate other research in wireless networks

Efficient Device to Device Communications Underlaying Heterogeneous Networks

Device-to-Device communications have the great potential to bring significant performance boost to the conventional heterogeneous network by reusing cellular resources. In cellular networks, Device-to-Device communication is defined as two user equipments in a close range communicating directly with each other without going through the base station, thus offloading cellular traffic from cellular networks. In addition to improve network spectral efficiency, D2D communication can also improve energy efficiency and user experience. However, the co-existence of D2D communication on the same spectrum with cellular users can cause severe interference to the primary cellular users. Thus the performance of cellular users must be assured when supporting underlay D2D users. In this work, we have investigated cross-layer optimization, resource allocation and interference management schemes to improve user experience, system spectral efficiency and energy efficiency for D2D communication underlaying heterogeneous networks. By exploiting frequency reuse and multi-user diversity, this research work aims to design wireless system level algorithms to utilize the spectrum and energy resources efficiently in the next generation wireless heterogeneous network