Resource Allocation for Wireless-Powered Full-Duplex Relaying Systems with Nonlinear Energy Harvesting Efficiency

In wireless power transfer (WPT)-assisted relaying systems, spectral efficiency (SE) of source-relay link plays a dominant role in system SE performance due to the limited transmission power at the WPT-aided relay. In this paper, we propose a novel protocol for a downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system with a WPT-aided relay operating in full-duplex (FD) decode-and-forward (DF) mode, where the time slot durations of the source-relay and relay-users hops are designed to be dynamic, to enhance the utilization of degrees of freedom and hence the system SE. In particular, a multiple-input and signal-output (MISO) source-relay channel is considered to satisfy the stringent sensitivity of the energy harvesting (EH) circuit at the relay, while a single-input and single-output (SISO) relay-user channel is considered to alleviate the power consumption at the relay node. Taking into account the non-linearity of EH efficiency, a near-optimal iteration-based dynamic WPT-aided FD relaying (A-FR) algorithm is developed by jointly optimizing the time slot durations, subcarriers, and transmission power at the source and the relay. Furthermore, self-interference generated at the relay is utilized as a vital energy source rather than being canceled, which increases substantially the total energy harvested at the FD relay. We also reveal some implicit characteristics of the considered WPT-aided FD relaying system through intensive discussions. Simulation results confirm that the proposed A-FR achieves a significant enhancement in terms of SE with different relay's locations and the number of users, compared to the conventional symmetric WPT-aided FD relaying (S-FR) and the time-switching-based WPT-aided FD relaying (TS-FR) benchmarks

Cooperative Relaying and Resource Allocation in Future-Generation Cellular Networks

Driven by the significant consumer demand for reliable and high data rate communications, the future-generation cellular systems are expected to employ cutting-edge techniques to improve the service provisioning at substantially reduced costs. Cooperative relaying is one of the primary techniques due to its ability to improve the spectrum utilization by taking advantage of the broadcast nature of wireless signals. This dissertation studies the physical layer cooperative relaying technique and resource allocation schemes in the cooperative cellular networks to improve the spectrum and energy efficiency from the perspectives of downlink transmission, uplink transmission and device-to-device transmission, respectively. For the downlink transmission, we consider an LTE-Advanced cooperative cellular network with the deployment of Type II in-band decode-and-forward relay stations (RSs) to enhance the cell-edge throughput and to extend the coverage area. This type of relays can better exploit the broadcast nature of wireless signals while improving the utilization of existing allocated spectral resources. For such a network, we propose joint orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) subcarrier and power allocation schemes to optimize the downlink multi-user transmission efficiency. Firstly, an optimal power dividing method between eNB and RS is proposed to maximize the achievable rate on each subcarrier. Based on this result, we show that the optimal joint resource allocation scheme for maximizing the overall throughput is to allocate each subcarrier to the user with the best channel quality and to distribute power in a water-filling manner. Since the users' Quality of Service (QoS) provision is one of the major design objectives in cellular networks, we further formulate a lexicographical optimization problem to maximize the minimum rate of all users while improving the overall throughput. A sufficient condition for optimality is derived. Due to the complexity of searching for the optimal solution, we then propose an efficient, low-complexity suboptimal joint resource allocation algorithm, which outperforms the existing suboptimal algorithms that simplify the joint design into separate allocation. Both theoretical and numerical analyses demonstrate that our proposed scheme can drastically improve the fairness as well as the overall throughput. As the physical layer uplink transmission technology for LTE-Advanced cellular network is based on single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) with frequency domain equalization (FDE), this dissertation further studies the uplink achievable rate and power allocation to improve the uplink spectrum efficiency in the cellular network. Different from the downlink OFDM system, signals on all subcarriers in the SC-FDMA system are transmitted sequentially rather than in parallel, thus the user's achievable rate is not simply the summation of the rates on all allocated subcarriers. Moreover, each user equipment (UE) has its own transmission power constraint instead of a total power constraint at the base station in the downlink case. Therefore, the uplink resource allocation problem in the LTE-Advanced system is more challenging. To this end, we first derive the achievable rates of the SC-FDMA system with two commonly-used FDE techniques, zero-forcing (ZF) equalization and minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalization, based on the joint superposition coding for cooperative relaying. We then propose optimal power allocation schemes among subcarriers at both UE and RS to maximize the overall throughput of the system. Theoretical analysis and numerical results are provided to demonstrate a significant gain in the system throughput by our proposed power allocation schemes. Besides the physical layer technology, the trend of improving energy efficiency in future cellular networks also motivates the network operators to continuously bring improvements in the entire network infrastructure. Such techniques include efficient base station (BS) redesign, opportunistic transmission such as device-to-device and cognitive radio communications. In the third part of this dissertation, we explore the potentials of employing cooperative relaying in a green device-to-device communication underlaying cellular network to improve the energy efficiency and spectrum utilization of the system. As the green base station is powered by sustainable energy, the design objective is to enhance both sustainability and efficiency of the device-to-device communication. Specifically, we first propose optimal power adaptation schemes to maximize the network spectrum efficiency under two practical power constraints. We then take the dynamics of the charging and discharging processes of the energy buffer at the BS into consideration to ensure the network sustainability. To this end, the energy buffer is modeled as a G/D/1 queue where the input energy has a general distribution. Power allocation schemes are proposed based on the statistics of the energy buffer to further enhance the network efficiency and sustainability. Theoretical analysis and numerical results are presented to demonstrate that our proposed power allocation schemes can improve the network throughput while maintaining the network sustainability at a certain level. Our analyses developed in this dissertation indicate that the cooperative transmission based on cooperative relaying can significantly improve the spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency of the cellular network for downlink transmission, uplink transmission and device-to-device communication. Our proposed cooperative relaying technique and resource allocation schemes can provide efficient solutions to practical design and optimization of future-generation cellular networks

Energy E fficiency Oriented Full Duplex Wireless Communication Systems

Full-duplex (FD) transmission is a promising technique for fifth generation (5G) wireless communications, enabling significant spectral efficiency (SE) improvement over existing half-duplex (HD) systems. However, FD transmission consumes higher power than HD transmission, especially for millimetre wave band. Therefore, energy efficiency (EE) for FD systems is a critical yet inadequately addressed issue. This thesis addresses the critical EE challenges and demonstrates promising solutions for implementing FD systems, as detailed in the following contributions. In the first contribution, a comprehensive EE analysis of the FD and HD amplify-and-forward (AF) relay-assisted 60 GHz dual-hop indoor wireless systems is presented. An opportunistic relay mode selection scheme is developed, where FD relay with different self-interference (SIC) techniques or HD relay is opportunistically selected. Together with transmission power adaptation, EE is maximised with given channel gains. A counter-intuitive finding is shown that, with a relatively loose maximum transmission power constraint, FD relay with two-stage SIC is preferable to both FD relay with one-stage SIC and HD relay, resulting in a higher optimised EE. A full range of power consumption sources are considered to rationalise the analysis. The effects of imperfect SIC at relay, drain efficiency and static circuit power on EE are investigated. Simulation results verify the theoretical analysis. In the second contribution, EE oriented resource allocation for FD decode-of-forward (DF) relay-assisted 60 GHz multiuser systems is investigated. In contrast to the existing SE oriented designs, the proposed scheme maximises EE for FD relay systems under cross-layer constraints, addressing the typical problems at 60 GHz. A low-complexity EE-orientated resource allocation algorithm is proposed, by which the transmission power allocation, subcarrier allocation and throughput assignment are performed jointly across multiple users. Simulation results verify the analytical results and confirm that the FD relay systems with the proposed algorithm achieve a higher EE than the FD relay systems with SE oriented approaches, while offering a comparable SE. In addition, a much lower throughput outage probability is guaranteed by the proposed resource allocation algorithm, showing its robustness against channel estimation errors. In the third contribution, it is noticed that in wireless power transfer (WPT)-aided relay systems, the SE of the source-relay link plays a dominant role in the system SE due to limited transmission power at the WPT-aided relay. A novel asymmetric protocol for WPT-aided FD DF relay systems is proposed in multiuser scenario, where the time slot durations of the two hops are designed to be uneven, to enhance the degree of freedom and hence the system SE. A corresponding dynamic resource allocation algorithm is developed by jointly optimising the time slot durations, subcarriers and transmission power at the source and the relay. Simulation results con rm that, compared to the symmetric WPT-aided FD relay (Sym-WPT-FR) and the time-switching based WPT-aided FD relay (TS-WPT-FR) systems in the literature, the proposed asymmetric WPT-aided FD relay system achieves up to twice the SE and higher robustness against the relay's location and the number of users. In the final contribution, to strike the balance between high SE and low power consumption, a hybrid duplexing strategy is developed for distributed antennas (DAs) systems, where antennas are capable of working in hybrid FD, HD, and sleeping modes. To maximise the system EE with low complexity, activation/deactivation of transmit/receive chain is first performed, by a proposed channel-gain-based DA clustering algorithm, which highlights the characteristics of distributed deployment of antennas. Based on the DAs' con figuration, a novel distributed hybrid duplexing (D-HD)-based and EE oriented algorithm is proposed to further optimise the downlink beamformer and the uplink transmission power. To rationalise the system model, self-interference at DAs, co-channel interference from uplink users to downlink users, and multiuser interference in both uplink and downlink are taken into account. Simulation results confirm that the proposed system provides significant EE and SE enhancements over the colocated FD MIMO system, showing the advantages in alleviating high path loss as well as in cutting the carbon footprint. Compared to the sole-FD DA system, the proposed system shows much higher EE with marginal loss in SE. Also, the SIC operation in the proposed system is much more simplified compared to the two benchmarks

Relay assisted device-to-device communication with channel uncertainty

The gains of direct communication between user equipment in a network may not be fully realised due to the separation between the user equipment and due to the fading that the channel between these user equipment experiences. In order to fully realise the gains that direct (device-to-device) communication promises, idle user equipment can be exploited to serve as relays to enforce device-to-device communication. The availability of potential relay user equipment creates a problem: a way to select the relay user equipment. Moreover, unlike infrastructure relays, user equipment are carried around by people and these users are self-interested. Thus the problem of relay selection goes beyond choosing which device to assist in relayed communication but catering for user self-interest. Another problem in wireless communication is the unavailability of perfect channel state information. This reality creates uncertainty in the channel and so in designing selection algorithms, channel uncertainty awareness needs to be a consideration. Therefore the work in this thesis considers the design of relay user equipment selection algorithms that are not only device centric but that are relay user equipment centric. Furthermore, the designed algorithms are channel uncertainty aware. Firstly, a stable matching based relay user equipment selection algorithm is put forward for underlay device-to-device communication. A channel uncertainty aware approach is proposed to cater to imperfect channel state information at the devices. The algorithm is combined with a rate based mode selection algorithm. Next, to cater to the queue state at the relay user equipment, a cross-layer selection algorithm is proposed for a twoway decode and forward relay set up. The algorithm proposed employs deterministic uncertainty constraint in the interference channel, solving the selection algorithm in a heuristic fashion. Then a cluster head selection algorithm is proposed for device-to-device group communication constrained by channel uncertainty in the interference channel. The formulated rate maximization problem is solved for deterministic and probabilistic constraint scenarios, and the problem extended to a multiple-input single-out scenario for which robust beamforming was designed. Finally, relay utility and social distance based selection algorithms are proposed for full duplex decode and forward device-to-device communication set up. A worst-case approach is proposed for a full channel uncertainty scenario. The results from computer simulations indicate that the proposed algorithms offer spectral efficiency, fairness and energy efficiency gains. The results also showed clearly the deterioration in the performance of networks when perfect channel state information is assumed

Resource Allocation in Relay Networks

Demand for high data rates is increasing rapidly, due to the rapid rise of mobile data traffic volume. In order to meet the demands, the future generation of wireless communication systems has to support higher data rates and quality of service. The inherent unreliable and unpredictable nature of wireless medium provides a challenge for increasing the data rate. Cooperative communications, is a prominent technique to combat the detrimental fading effect in wireless communications. Adding relay nodes to the network, and creating s virtual multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna array is proven to be an efficient method to mitigate the multipath fading and expand the network coverage. Therefore, cooperative relaying is considered as a fundamental element in the Long Term Evolution (LTE)-Advanced standard. In this thesis, we address the problem of resource allocation in cooperative networks. We provide a detailed review on the resource allocation problem. We look at the joint subcarrier-relay assignment and power allocation. The objective of this optimization problem is to allocate the resources fairly, so even the cell-edge users with weakest communication links receive a fair share of resources. We propose a simple and practical algorithm to find the optimal solution. We assess the performance of the proposed algorithm by providing simulations. Furthermore, we investigate the optimality and complexity of the proposed algorithm. Due to the layered architecture of the wireless networks, to achieve the optimal performance it is necessary that the design of the algorithms be based on the underlying physical and link layers. For a cooperative network with correlated channels, we propose a cross-layer algorithm for relay selection, based on both the physical and link-layer characteristics, in order to maximize the linklayer throughput. The performance of the proposed algorithm is studied in different network models. Furthermore, we investigate the optimum number of relays required for cooperation in order to achieve maximum throughput. Buffering has proven to improve the performance of the cooperative network. In light of this, we study the performance of buffer-aided relay selection. In order to move one step closer to the practical applications, we consider a system with coded transmissions. We study three different coding schemes: convolutional code, Turbo code, and distributed Turbo code (DTC). For each scheme, the performance of the system is simulated and assessed analytically. We derive a closed form expression of the average throughput. Using the analysis results, we investigate the diversity gain of the system in asymptotic conditions. Further, we investigate the average transmission delay for different schemes

Adaptive relay techniques for OFDM-based cooperative communication systems

Cooperative communication has been considered as a cost-effective manner to exploit the spatial diversity, improve the quality-of-service and extend transmission coverage. However, there are many challenges faced by cooperative systems which use relays to forward signals to the destination, such as the accumulation of multipath channels, complex resource allocation with the bidirectional asymmetric traffic and reduction of transmission efficiency caused by additional relay overhead. In this thesis, we aim to address the above challenges of cooperative communications, and design the efficient relay systems. Starting with the channel accumulation problem in the amplify-and-forward relay system, we proposed two adaptive schemes for single/multiple-relay networks respectively. These schemes exploit an adaptive guard interval (GI) technique to cover the accumulated delay spread and enhance the transmission efficiency by limiting the overhead. The proposed GI scheme can be implemented without any extra control signal. Extending the adaptive GI scheme to multiple-relay systems, we propose a relay selection strategy which achieves the trade-off between the transmission reliability and overhead by considering both the channel gain and the accumulated delay spread. We then consider resource allocation problem in the two-way decode-and-forward relay system with asymmetric traffic loads. Two allocation algorithms are respectively investigated for time-division and frequency-division relay systems to maximize the end-to-end capacity of the two-way system under a capacity ratio constraint. For the frequency-division systems, a balanced end-to-end capacity is defined as the objective function which combines the requirements of maximizing the end-to-end capacity and achieving the capacity ratio. A suboptimal algorithm is proposed for the frequency-division systems which separates subcarrier allocation and time/power allocation. It can achieve the similar performance with the optimal one with reduced complexity. In order to further enhance the transmission reliability and maintaining low processing delay, we propose an equalize-and-forward (EF) relay scheme. The EF relay equalizes the channel between source and relay to eliminate the channel accumulation without signal regeneration. To reduce the processing time, an efficient parallel structure is applied in the EF relay. Numerical results show that the EF relay exhibits low outage probability at the same data rate as compared to AF and DF schemes