Recent advances in radio resource management for heterogeneous LTE/LTE-A networks

As heterogeneous networks (HetNets) emerge as one of the most promising developments toward realizing the target specifications of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) networks, radio resource management (RRM) research for such networks has, in recent times, been intensively pursued. Clearly, recent research mainly concentrates on the aspect of interference mitigation. Other RRM aspects, such as radio resource utilization, fairness, complexity, and QoS, have not been given much attention. In this paper, we aim to provide an overview of the key challenges arising from HetNets and highlight their importance. Subsequently, we present a comprehensive survey of the RRM schemes that have been studied in recent years for LTE/LTE-A HetNets, with a particular focus on those for femtocells and relay nodes. Furthermore, we classify these RRM schemes according to their underlying approaches. In addition, these RRM schemes are qualitatively analyzed and compared to each other. We also identify a number of potential research directions for future RRM development. Finally, we discuss the lack of current RRM research and the importance of multi-objective RRM studies

A New Cell Association Scheme In Heterogeneous Networks

Cell association scheme determines which base station (BS) and mobile user (MU) should be associated with and also plays a significant role in determining the average data rate a MU can achieve in heterogeneous networks. However, the explosion of digital devices and the scarcity of spectra collectively force us to carefully re-design cell association scheme which was kind of taken for granted before. To address this, we develop a new cell association scheme in heterogeneous networks based on joint consideration of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) which a MU experiences and the traffic load of candidate BSs1. MUs and BSs in each tier are modeled as several independent Poisson point processes (PPPs) and all channels experience independently and identically distributed ( i.i.d.) Rayleigh fading. Data rate ratio and traffic load ratio distributions are derived to obtain the tier association probability and the average ergodic MU data rate. Through numerical results, We find that our proposed cell association scheme outperforms cell range expansion (CRE) association scheme. Moreover, results indicate that allocating small sized and high-density BSs will improve spectral efficiency if using our proposed cell association scheme in heterogeneous networks.Comment: Accepted by IEEE ICC 2015 - Next Generation Networking Symposiu

MIMO relaying UAVs operating in public safety scenarios

Methods to implement communication in natural and humanmade disasters have been widely discussed in the scientific community. Scientists believe that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) relays will play a critical role in 5G public safety communications (PSC) due to their technical superiority. They have several significant advantages: a high degree of mobility, flexibility, exceptional line of sight, and real-time adaptative planning. For instance, cell edge coverage could be extended using relay UAVs. This paper summarizes the sidelink evolution in the 3GPP standardization associated with the usage of the device to device (D2D) techniques that use long term evolution (LTE) communication systems, potential extensions for 5G, and a study on the impact of circular mobility on relay UAVs using the software network simulator 3 (NS3). In this simulation, the transmitted packet percentage was evaluated where the speed of the UAV for users was changed. This paper also examines the multi-input multi-output (MIMO) communication applied to drones and proposes a new trajectory to assist users experiencing unfortunate circumstances. The overall communication is highly dependent on the drone speed and the use of MIMO and suitable antennas may influence overall transmission between users and the UAVs relay. When the UAVs relaying speed was configured at 108 km/h the total transmission rate was reduced to 55% in the group with 6 users allocated to each drone.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation for D2D Communications Underlaying Cloud-RAN-Based LTE-A Networks

Device-to-device (D2D) communication is a key enabler to facilitate the realization of the Internet of Things (IoT). In this paper, we study the deployment of D2D communications as an underlay to long-term evolution-advanced (LTE-A) networks based on novel architectures such as cloud radio access network (C-RAN). The challenge is that both energy efficiency (EE) and quality of service (QoS) are severely degraded by the strong intracell and intercell interference due to dense deployment and spectrum reuse. To tackle this problem, we propose an energy-efficient resource allocation algorithm through joint channel selection and power allocation design. The proposed algorithm has a hybrid structure that exploits the hybrid architecture of C-RAN: distributed remote radio heads (RRHs) and centralized baseband unit (BBU) pool. The distributed resource allocation problem is modeled as a noncooperative game, and each player optimizes its EE individually with the aid of distributed RRHs. We transform the nonconvex optimization problem into a convex one by applying constraint relaxation and nonlinear fractional programming. We propose a centralized interference mitigation algorithm to improve the QoS performance. The centralized algorithm consists of an interference cancellation technique and a transmission power constraint optimization technique, both of which are carried out in the centralized BBU pool. The achievable performance of the proposed algorithm is analyzed through simulations, and the implementation issues and complexity analysis are discussed in detail

Role of Interference and Computational Complexity in Modern Wireless Networks: Analysis, Optimization, and Design

Owing to the popularity of smartphones, the recent widespread adoption of wireless broadband has resulted in a tremendous growth in the volume of mobile data traffic, and this growth is projected to continue unabated. In order to meet the needs of future systems, several novel technologies have been proposed, including cooperative communications, cloud radio access networks (RANs) and very densely deployed small-cell networks. For these novel networks, both interference and the limited availability of computational resources play a very important role. Therefore, the accurate modeling and analysis of interference and computation is essential to the understanding of these networks, and an enabler for more efficient design.;This dissertation focuses on four aspects of modern wireless networks: (1) Modeling and analysis of interference in single-hop wireless networks, (2) Characterizing the tradeoffs between the communication performance of wireless transmission and the computational load on the systems used to process such transmissions, (3) The optimization of wireless multiple-access networks when using cost functions that are based on the analytical findings in this dissertation, and (4) The analysis and optimization of multi-hop networks, which may optionally employ forms of cooperative communication.;The study of interference in single-hop wireless networks proceeds by assuming that the random locations of the interferers are drawn from a point process and possibly constrained to a finite area. Both the information-bearing and interfering signals propagate over channels that are subject to path loss, shadowing, and fading. A flexible model for fading, based on the Nakagami distribution, is used, though specific examples are provided for Rayleigh fading. The analysis is broken down into multiple steps, involving subsequent averaging of the performance metrics over the fading, the shadowing, and the location of the interferers with the aim to distinguish the effect of these mechanisms that operate over different time scales. The analysis is extended to accommodate diversity reception, which is important for the understanding of cooperative systems that combine transmissions that originate from different locations. Furthermore, the role of spatial correlation is considered, which provides insight into how the performance in one location is related to the performance in another location.;While it is now generally understood how to communicate close to the fundamental limits implied by information theory, operating close to the fundamental performance bounds is costly in terms of the computational complexity required to receive the signal. This dissertation provides a framework for understanding the tradeoffs between communication performance and the imposed complexity based on how close a system operates to the performance bounds, and it allows to accurately estimate the required data processing resources of a network under a given performance constraint. The framework is applied to Cloud-RAN, which is a new cellular architecture that moves the bulk of the signal processing away from the base stations (BSs) and towards a centralized computing cloud. The analysis developed in this part of the dissertation helps to illuminate the benefits of pooling computing assets when decoding multiple uplink signals in the cloud. Building upon these results, new approaches for wireless resource allocation are proposed, which unlike previous approaches, are aware of the computing limitations of the network.;By leveraging the accurate expressions that characterize performance in the presence of interference and fading, a methodology is described for optimizing wireless multiple-access networks. The focus is on frequency hopping (FH) systems, which are already widely used in military systems, and are becoming more common in commercial systems. The optimization determines the best combination of modulation parameters (such as the modulation index for continuous-phase frequency-shift keying), number of hopping channels, and code rate. In addition, it accounts for the adjacent-channel interference (ACI) and determines how much of the signal spectrum should lie within the operating band of each channel, and how much can be allowed to splatter into adjacent channels.;The last part of this dissertation contemplates networks that involve multi-hop communications. Building on the analytical framework developed in early parts of this dissertation, the performance of such networks is analyzed in the presence of interference and fading, and it is introduced a novel paradigm for a rapid performance assessment of routing protocols. Such networks may involve cooperative communications, and the particular cooperative protocol studied here allows the same packet to be transmitted simultaneously by multiple transmitters and diversity combined at the receiver. The dynamics of how the cooperative protocol evolves over time is described through an absorbing Markov chain, and the analysis is able to efficiently capture the interference that arises as packets are periodically injected into the network by a common source, the temporal correlation among these packets and their interdependence

Interference Alignment and Cancellation in Wireless Communication Systems

The Shannon capacity of wireless networks has a fundamental importance for network information theory. This area has recently seen remarkable progress on a variety of problems including the capacity of interference networks, X networks, cellular networks, cooperative communication networks and cognitive radio networks. While each communication scenario has its own characteristics, a common reason of these recent developments is the new idea of interference alignment. The idea of interference alignment is to consolidate the interference into smaller dimensions of signal space at each receiver and use the remaining dimensions to transmit the desired signals without any interference. However, perfect alignment of interference requires certain assumptions, such as perfect channel state information at transmitter and receiver, perfect synchronization and feedback. Today’s wireless communication systems, on the other and, do not encounter such ideal conditions. In this thesis, we cover a breadth of topics of interference alignment and cancellation schemes in wireless communication systems such as multihop relay networks, multicell networks as well as cooperation and optimisation in such systems. Our main contributions in this thesis can be summarised as follows: • We derive analytical expressions for an interference alignment scheme in a multihop relay network with imperfect channel state information, and investigate the impact of interference on such systems where interference could accumulate due to the misalignment at each hop. • We also address the dimensionality problem in larger wireless communication systems such as multi-cellular systems. We propose precoding schemes based on maximising signal power over interference and noise. We show that these precoding vectors would dramatically improve the rates for multi-user cellular networks in both uplink and downlink, without requiring an excessive number of dimensions. Furthermore, we investigate how to improve the receivers which can mitigate interference more efficiently. • We also propose partial cooperation in an interference alignment and cancellation scheme. This enables us to assess the merits of varying mixture of cooperative and non-cooperative users and the gains achievable while reducing the overhead of channel estimation. In addition to this, we analytically derive expressions for the additional interference caused by imperfect channel estimation in such cooperative systems. We also show the impact of imperfect channel estimation on cooperation gains. • Furthermore, we propose jointly optimisation of interference alignment and cancellation for multi-user multi-cellular networks in both uplink and downlink. We find the optimum set of transceivers which minimise the mean square error at each base station. We demonstrate that optimised transceivers can outperform existing interference alignment and cancellation schemes. • Finally, we consider power adaptation and user selection schemes. The simulation results indicate that user selection and power adaptation techniques based on estimated rates can improve the overall system performance significantly

Blind interference alignment for cellular networks

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorManaging the interference is the main challenge in cellular networks. Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) schemes have emerged as a means of achieving high-capacity in wireless communications. The most efficient MIMO techniques are based on managing the interference instead of avoiding it by employing orthogonal resource allocation schemes. These transmission schemes require the knowledge of the Channel State Information at the Transmitter (CSIT) to achieve the optimal Degrees of Freedom (DoF), also known as multiplexing gain. Providing an accurate CSIT in cellular environments involves high-capacity backhaul links and accurate synchronization, which imply the use of a large amount of network resources. Recently, a Blind Interference Alignment (BIA) scheme was devised as a means of achieving a growth in DoF regarding the amount of users served without the need for CSIT in the Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) Broadcast Channel (BC). It is demonstrated that BIA achieves the optimal DoF in the BC without CSIT. However, the implementation of BIA in cellular networks is not straightforward. This dissertation investigates the DoF and the corresponding sum-rate of cellular networks in absence of CSIT and their achievability by using BIA schemes. First, this dissertation derives the DoF-region of homogenous cellular networks with partial connectivity. Assuming that all the Base Stations (BSs) cooperate in order to transmit to all users in the network, we proposed an extension of the BIA scheme for the MISO BC where the set of BSs transmits as in a network MIMO. It is shown that the cooperation between BSs results futile because of the lack of full connectivity in cellular networks. After that, this dissertation presents several transmission schemes based on the network topology. By differentiating between users that can treat this interference optimally as noise and those who need to manage the interference from neighbouring BSs, a network BIA scheme is devised to achieve the optimal DoF in homogeneous cellular networks. Second, the use of BIA schemes is analyzed for heterogeneous cellular networks. It is demonstrated that the previous BIA schemes based on the network topology result nonoptimal in DoF because of the particular features of the heterogenous cellular networks. More specifically, assuming a macro-femto network, cooperation between both tiers leads to a penalty for macro users while femto users do not exploit the particular topology of this kind of network. In this dissertation, the optimal linear DoF (lDoF) in a two-tier network are derived subject to optimality in DoF for the upper tier. It is demonstrated that, without CSIT or any cooperation between tiers, the lower tier can achieve nonzero DoF while the upper tier attains the optimal DoF by transmitting independently of the lower tier deployment. After that, a cognitive BIA scheme that achieves this outer bound is devised for macro-femto cellular networks. The third part of this dissertation is focused on the implementation of BIA in practical scenarios. It is shown that transmission at limited SNR and coherence time are the main hurdles to overcome for practical implementations of BIA. With aim of managing both constraints, the use of BIA together with orthogonal approaches is proposed in this work. An improvement on the inherent noise increase of BIA and the required coherence time is achieved at expenses of losing DoF. Therefore, there exists a trade-off between multiplexing gain, sum-rate at finite SNR and coherence time in practical scenarios. The optimal resource allocation for orthogonal transmission is obtained after solving a very specific optimization problem. To complete the characterization of the performance of BIA in realistic scenarios a experimental evaluation based on a hardware implementation is presented at the end of this work. It is shown that BIA outperforms the sum-rate of schemes based on CSIT such as LZFB because of the hardware impairments and the costs of providing CSIT in a realist implementation.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Multimedia y ComunicacionesPresidente: Luc Vandendorpe.- Secretario: María Julia Fernández-Getino García.- Vocal: Ignacio Santamaría Caballer