Cooperative Precoding/Resource Allocation Games under Spectral Mask and Total Power Constraints

The use of orthogonal signaling schemes such as time-, frequency-, or code-division multiplexing (T-, F-, CDM) in multi-user systems allows for power-efficient simple receivers. It is shown in this paper that by using orthogonal signaling on frequency selective fading channels, the cooperative Nash bargaining (NB)-based precoding games for multi-user systems, which aim at maximizing the information rates of all users, are simplified to the corresponding cooperative resource allocation games. The latter provides additional practically desired simplifications to transmitter design and significantly reduces the overhead during user cooperation. The complexity of the corresponding precoding/resource allocation games, however, depends on the constraints imposed on the users. If only spectral mask constraints are present, the corresponding cooperative NB problem can be formulated as a convex optimization problem and solved efficiently in a distributed manner using dual decomposition based algorithm. However, the NB problem is non-convex if total power constraints are also imposed on the users. In this case, the complexity associate with finding the NB solution is unacceptably high. Therefore, the multi-user systems are categorized into bandwidth- and power-dominant based on a bottleneck resource, and different manners of cooperation are developed for each type of systems for the case of two-users. Such classification guarantees that the solution obtained in each case is Pareto-optimal and actually can be identical to the optimal solution, while the complexity is significantly reduced. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed cooperative precoding/resource allocation strategies and the reduced complexity of the proposed algorithms.Comment: 33 pages, 8 figures, Submitted to the IEEE Trans. Signal Processing in Oct. 200

Distributed Multicell Beamforming Design Approaching Pareto Boundary with Max-Min Fairness

This paper addresses coordinated downlink beamforming optimization in multicell time-division duplex (TDD) systems where a small number of parameters are exchanged between cells but with no data sharing. With the goal to reach the point on the Pareto boundary with max-min rate fairness, we first develop a two-step centralized optimization algorithm to design the joint beamforming vectors. This algorithm can achieve a further sum-rate improvement over the max-min optimal performance, and is shown to guarantee max-min Pareto optimality for scenarios with two base stations (BSs) each serving a single user. To realize a distributed solution with limited intercell communication, we then propose an iterative algorithm by exploiting an approximate uplink-downlink duality, in which only a small number of positive scalars are shared between cells in each iteration. Simulation results show that the proposed distributed solution achieves a fairness rate performance close to the centralized algorithm while it has a better sum-rate performance, and demonstrates a better tradeoff between sum-rate and fairness than the Nash Bargaining solution especially at high signal-to-noise ratio.Comment: 8 figures. To Appear in IEEE Trans. Wireless Communications, 201

Optimal Linear Precoding Strategies for Wideband Non-Cooperative Systems based on Game Theory-Part I: Nash Equilibria

In this two-parts paper we propose a decentralized strategy, based on a game-theoretic formulation, to find out the optimal precoding/multiplexing matrices for a multipoint-to-multipoint communication system composed of a set of wideband links sharing the same physical resources, i.e., time and bandwidth. We assume, as optimality criterion, the achievement of a Nash equilibrium and consider two alternative optimization problems: 1) the competitive maximization of mutual information on each link, given constraints on the transmit power and on the spectral mask imposed by the radio spectrum regulatory bodies; and 2) the competitive maximization of the transmission rate, using finite order constellations, under the same constraints as above, plus a constraint on the average error probability. In Part I of the paper, we start by showing that the solution set of both noncooperative games is always nonempty and contains only pure strategies. Then, we prove that the optimal precoding/multiplexing scheme for both games leads to a channel diagonalizing structure, so that both matrix-valued problems can be recast in a simpler unified vector power control game, with no performance penalty. Thus, we study this simpler game and derive sufficient conditions ensuring the uniqueness of the Nash equilibrium. Interestingly, although derived under stronger constraints, incorporating for example spectral mask constraints, our uniqueness conditions have broader validity than previously known conditions. Finally, we assess the goodness of the proposed decentralized strategy by comparing its performance with the performance of a Pareto-optimal centralized scheme. To reach the Nash equilibria of the game, in Part II, we propose alternative distributed algorithms, along with their convergence conditions.Comment: Paper submitted to IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, September 22, 2005. Revised March 14, 2007. Accepted June 5, 2007. To be published on IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 2007. To appear on IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 200

Coordinated Beamforming with Relaxed Zero Forcing: The Sequential Orthogonal Projection Combining Method and Rate Control

In this paper, coordinated beamforming based on relaxed zero forcing (RZF) for K transmitter-receiver pair multiple-input single-output (MISO) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference channels is considered. In the RZF coordinated beamforming, conventional zero-forcing interference leakage constraints are relaxed so that some predetermined interference leakage to undesired receivers is allowed in order to increase the beam design space for larger rates than those of the zero-forcing (ZF) scheme or to make beam design feasible when ZF is impossible. In the MISO case, it is shown that the rate-maximizing beam vector under the RZF framework for a given set of interference leakage levels can be obtained by sequential orthogonal projection combining (SOPC). Based on this, exact and approximate closed-form solutions are provided in two-user and three-user cases, respectively, and an efficient beam design algorithm for RZF coordinated beamforming is provided in general cases. Furthermore, the rate control problem under the RZF framework is considered. A centralized approach and a distributed heuristic approach are proposed to control the position of the designed rate-tuple in the achievable rate region. Finally, the RZF framework is extended to MIMO interference channels by deriving a new lower bound on the rate of each user.Comment: Lemma 1 proof corrected; a new SOPC algorithm invented; K > N case considere

Robust Monotonic Optimization Framework for Multicell MISO Systems

The performance of multiuser systems is both difficult to measure fairly and to optimize. Most resource allocation problems are non-convex and NP-hard, even under simplifying assumptions such as perfect channel knowledge, homogeneous channel properties among users, and simple power constraints. We establish a general optimization framework that systematically solves these problems to global optimality. The proposed branch-reduce-and-bound (BRB) algorithm handles general multicell downlink systems with single-antenna users, multiantenna transmitters, arbitrary quadratic power constraints, and robustness to channel uncertainty. A robust fairness-profile optimization (RFO) problem is solved at each iteration, which is a quasi-convex problem and a novel generalization of max-min fairness. The BRB algorithm is computationally costly, but it shows better convergence than the previously proposed outer polyblock approximation algorithm. Our framework is suitable for computing benchmarks in general multicell systems with or without channel uncertainty. We illustrate this by deriving and evaluating a zero-forcing solution to the general problem.Comment: Published in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 16 pages, 9 figures, 2 table

Transmit Optimization with Improper Gaussian Signaling for Interference Channels

This paper studies the achievable rates of Gaussian interference channels with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), when improper or circularly asymmetric complex Gaussian signaling is applied. For the Gaussian multiple-input multiple-output interference channel (MIMO-IC) with the interference treated as Gaussian noise, we show that the user's achievable rate can be expressed as a summation of the rate achievable by the conventional proper or circularly symmetric complex Gaussian signaling in terms of the users' transmit covariance matrices, and an additional term, which is a function of both the users' transmit covariance and pseudo-covariance matrices. The additional degrees of freedom in the pseudo-covariance matrix, which is conventionally set to be zero for the case of proper Gaussian signaling, provide an opportunity to further improve the achievable rates of Gaussian MIMO-ICs by employing improper Gaussian signaling. To this end, this paper proposes widely linear precoding, which efficiently maps proper information-bearing signals to improper transmitted signals at each transmitter for any given pair of transmit covariance and pseudo-covariance matrices. In particular, for the case of two-user Gaussian single-input single-output interference channel (SISO-IC), we propose a joint covariance and pseudo-covariance optimization algorithm with improper Gaussian signaling to achieve the Pareto-optimal rates. By utilizing the separable structure of the achievable rate expression, an alternative algorithm with separate covariance and pseudo-covariance optimization is also proposed, which guarantees the rate improvement over conventional proper Gaussian signaling.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin

Globally Optimal Energy-Efficient Power Control and Receiver Design in Wireless Networks

The characterization of the global maximum of energy efficiency (EE) problems in wireless networks is a challenging problem due to the non-convex nature of investigated problems in interference channels. The aim of this work is to develop a new and general framework to achieve globally optimal solutions. First, the hidden monotonic structure of the most common EE maximization problems is exploited jointly with fractional programming theory to obtain globally optimal solutions with exponential complexity in the number of network links. To overcome this issue, we also propose a framework to compute suboptimal power control strategies characterized by affordable complexity. This is achieved by merging fractional programming and sequential optimization. The proposed monotonic framework is used to shed light on the ultimate performance of wireless networks in terms of EE and also to benchmark the performance of the lower-complexity framework based on sequential programming. Numerical evidence is provided to show that the sequential fractional programming framework achieves global optimality in several practical communication scenarios.Comment: Accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin