Performance Analysis, Resource Allocation and Optimization of Cooperative Communication Systems under Generalized Fading Channels

The increasing demands for high-speed data transmission, efficient wireless access, high quality of service (QoS) and reliable network coverage with reduced power consumption impose demanding intensive research efforts on the design of novel wireless communication system architectures. A notable development in the area of communication theory is the introduction of cooperative communication systems. These technologies become promising solution for the next-generation wireless transmission systems due to their applicability in size, power, hardware and price constrained devices, such as cellular mobile devices, wireless sensors, ad-hoc networks and military communications, being able to provide, e.g., diversity gain against fading channels without the need for installing multiple antennas in a single terminal. The performance of the cooperative systems can in general be significantly increased by allocating the limited power efficiently. In this thesis, we address in detail the performance analysis, resource allocation and optimization of such cooperative communication systems under generalized fading channels. We focus first on energy-efficiency (EE) optimization and optimal power allocation (OPA) of regenerative cooperative network with spatial correlation effects under given power constraint and QoS requirement. The thesis also investigates the end-to-end performance and power allocation of a regenerative multi-relay cooperative network over non-homogeneous scattering environment, which is realistic case in practical wireless communication scenarios. Furthermore, the study investigates the end-to-end performance, OPA and energy optimization analysis under total power constraint and performance requirement of full-duplex (FD) relaying transmission scheme over asymmetric generalized fading models with relay self-interference (SI) effects.The study first focuses on exact error analysis and EE optimization of regenerative relay systems under spatial correlation effects. It first derives novel exact and asymptotic expressions for the symbol-error-rates (SERs) of M -ary quadrature amplitude and M -ary phase-shift keying (M -QAM) and (M -PSK) modulations, respectively, assuming a dual-hop decode-and-forward relay system, spatial correlation, path-loss effects and maximum-ratio-combing (MRC) at the destination. Based on this, EEoptimization and OPA are carried out under certain QoS requirement and transmit power constraints.Furthermore, the second part of the study investigates the end-to-end performance and power allocation of MRC based regenerative multi-relay cooperative system over non-homogeneous scattering environment. Novel exact and asymptotic expressions are derived for the end-to-end average SER for M -QAM and M -PSK modulations.The offered results are employed in performance investigations and power allocation formulations under total transmit power constraints.Finally, the thesis investigates outage performance, OPA and energy optimization analysis under certain system constraints for the FD and half-duplex (HD) relaying systems. Unlike the previous studies that considered the scenario of information transmission over symmetric fading conditions, in this study we considered the scenario of information transmission over the most generalized asymmetric fading environments.The obtained results indicate that depending on the severity of multipath fading, the spatial correlation between the direct and relayed paths and the relay location, the direct transmission is more energy-efficient only for rather short transmission distances and until a certain threshold. Beyond this, the system benefits substantially from the cooperative transmission approach where the cooperation gain increases as the transmission distance increases. Furthermore, the investigations on the power allocation for the multi-relay system over the generalized small-scale fading model show that substantial performance gain can be achieved by the proposed power allocation scheme over the conventional equal power allocation (EPA) scheme when the source-relay and relay-destination paths are highly unbalanced. Extensive studies on the FD relay system also show that OPA provides significant performance gain over the EPA scheme when the relay SI level is relatively strong. In addition, it is shown that the FD relaying scheme is more energy-efficient than the reference HD relaying scheme at long transmission distances and for moderate relay SI levels.In general, the investigations in this thesis provide tools, results and useful insights for implementing space-efficient, low-cost and energy-efficient cooperative networks, specifically, towards the future green communication era where the optimization of the scarce resources is critical

Transmission resource allocation in multi-antenna wireless communication systems with channel uncertainty

In this thesis we investigate the design of transmission resource allocation in current and future wireless communication systems. We focus on systems with multiple antennas and characterize their performance from an information-theoretic viewpoint. The goal of this work is to provide practical transmission and resource allocation strategies taking into account imperfections in estimating the wireless channel, as well as the broadcast nature of the wireless channel. In the first part of the thesis, we consider training-based transmission schemes in which pilot symbols are inserted into data blocks to facilitate channel estimation. We consider one-way training-based systems with and without feedback, as well as two-way training-based systems. Two-way training enables both the transmitter and the receiver to obtain the channel state information (CSI) through reverse training and forward training, respectively. In all considered cases, we derive efficient strategies for transmit time and/or energy allocation among the pilot and data symbols. These strategies usually have analytical closed-form expressions and can achieve near optimal capacity performance evidenced by extensive numerical analysis. In one-way training-based systems without feedback, we consider both spatially independent and correlated channels. For spatially independent channels, we provide analytical bounds on the optimal training length and study the optimal antenna con¯guration that maximizes an ergodic capacity lower bound. For spatially correlated channels, we provide simple pilot and data transmission strategies that are robust under least-favorable channel correlation conditions. In one-way training-based systems with feedback, we study channel gain feedback (CGF), channel covariance feedback (CCF) and hybrid feedback. For spatially independent channels with CGF, we show that the solutions to the optimal training length and energy coincide with those for systems without feedback. For spatially correlated channels with CCF, we propose a simple transmission scheme, taking into account the fact that the optimal training length is at most as large as the number of transmit antennas. We then provided solution to the optimal energy allocation between pilot and data transmissions, which does not depend on the channel spatial correlation under a mild condition. Our derived resource allocation strategies in CGF and CCF systems are extended to hybrid CCF-CGF systems. In two-way training-based systems, we provide analytical solutions to the transmit power distribution among the different training phases and the data transmission phase. These solutions are shown to have near optimal symbol error rate (SER) and capacity performance. We find that the use of two-way training can provide noticeable performance improvement over reverse training only when the system is operating at moderate to high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and using high-order modulations. While this improvement from two-way training is insignificant at low SNR or low-order modulations. In the second part of the thesis, we consider transmission resource allocation in security-constrained systems. Due to the broadcast nature of the wireless medium, security is a fundamental issue in wireless communications. To guarantee secure communication in the presence of eavesdroppers, we consider a multi-antenna transmission strategy which sends both an information signal to the intended receiver and a noise-like signal isotropically to confuse the eavesdroppers. We study the optimal transmit power allocation between the information signal and the artificial noise. In particular, we show that equal power allocation is a near optimal strategy for non-colluding eavesdroppers, while more power should be used to generate the artificial noise for colluding eavesdroppers. In the presence of channel estimation errors, we find that it is better to create more artificial noise than to increase the information signal strength

Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks: An Overview of Game-Theoretic Approaches

An overview of game-theoretic approaches to energy-efficient resource allocation in wireless networks is presented. Focusing on multiple-access networks, it is demonstrated that game theory can be used as an effective tool to study resource allocation in wireless networks with quality-of-service (QoS) constraints. A family of non-cooperative (distributed) games is presented in which each user seeks to choose a strategy that maximizes its own utility while satisfying its QoS requirements. The utility function considered here measures the number of reliable bits that are transmitted per joule of energy consumed and, hence, is particulary suitable for energy-constrained networks. The actions available to each user in trying to maximize its own utility are at least the choice of the transmit power and, depending on the situation, the user may also be able to choose its transmission rate, modulation, packet size, multiuser receiver, multi-antenna processing algorithm, or carrier allocation strategy. The best-response strategy and Nash equilibrium for each game is presented. Using this game-theoretic framework, the effects of power control, rate control, modulation, temporal and spatial signal processing, carrier allocation strategy and delay QoS constraints on energy efficiency and network capacity are quantified.Comment: To appear in the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine: Special Issue on Resource-Constrained Signal Processing, Communications and Networking, May 200