Jointly Optimal Channel Pairing and Power Allocation for Multichannel Multihop Relaying

We study the problem of channel pairing and power allocation in a multichannel multihop relay network to enhance the end-to-end data rate. Both amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) relaying strategies are considered. Given fixed power allocation to the channels, we show that channel pairing over multiple hops can be decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay, and a sorted-SNR channel pairing strategy is sum-rate optimal, where each relay pairs its incoming and outgoing channels by their SNR order. For the joint optimization of channel pairing and power allocation under both total and individual power constraints, we show that the problem can be decoupled into two subproblems solved separately. This separation principle is established by observing the equivalence between sorting SNRs and sorting channel gains in the jointly optimal solution. It significantly reduces the computational complexity in finding the jointly optimal solution. It follows that the channel pairing problem in joint optimization can be again decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay based on sorted channel gains. The solution for optimizing power allocation for DF relaying is also provided, as well as an asymptotically optimal solution for AF relaying. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate substantial performance gain of the jointly optimal solution over some suboptimal alternatives. It is also observed that more gain is obtained from optimal channel pairing than optimal power allocation through judiciously exploiting the variation among multiple channels. Impact of the variation of channel gain, the number of channels, and the number of hops on the performance gain is also studied through numerical examples.Comment: 15 pages. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin

Wireless Information and Energy Transfer for Two-Hop Non-Regenerative MIMO-OFDM Relay Networks

This paper investigates the simultaneous wireless information and energy transfer for the non-regenerative multipleinput multiple-output orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) relaying system. By considering two practical receiver architectures, we present two protocols, time switchingbased relaying (TSR) and power splitting-based relaying (PSR). To explore the system performance limit, we formulate two optimization problems to maximize the end-to-end achievable information rate with the full channel state information (CSI) assumption. Since both problems are non-convex and have no known solution method, we firstly derive some explicit results by theoretical analysis and then design effective algorithms for them. Numerical results show that the performances of both protocols are greatly affected by the relay position. Specifically, PSR and TSR show very different behaviors to the variation of relay position. The achievable information rate of PSR monotonically decreases when the relay moves from the source towards the destination, but for TSR, the performance is relatively worse when the relay is placed in the middle of the source and the destination. This is the first time to observe such a phenomenon. In addition, it is also shown that PSR always outperforms TSR in such a MIMO-OFDM relaying system. Moreover, the effect of the number of antennas and the number of subcarriers are also discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, to appear in IEEE Selected Areas in Communication

Weighted Sum Rate Maximization for Downlink OFDMA with Subcarrier-pair based Opportunistic DF Relaying

This paper addresses a weighted sum rate (WSR) maximization problem for downlink OFDMA aided by a decode-and-forward (DF) relay under a total power constraint. A novel subcarrier-pair based opportunistic DF relaying protocol is proposed. Specifically, user message bits are transmitted in two time slots. A subcarrier in the first slot can be paired with a subcarrier in the second slot for the DF relay-aided transmission to a user. In particular, the source and the relay can transmit simultaneously to implement beamforming at the subcarrier in the second slot. Each unpaired subcarrier in either the first or second slot is used for the source's direct transmission to a user. A benchmark protocol, same as the proposed one except that the transmit beamforming is not used for the relay-aided transmission, is also considered. For each protocol, a polynomial-complexity algorithm is developed to find at least an approximately optimum resource allocation (RA), by using continuous relaxation, the dual method, and Hungarian algorithm. Instrumental to the algorithm design is an elegant definition of optimization variables, motivated by the idea of regarding the unpaired subcarriers as virtual subcarrier pairs in the direct transmission mode. The effectiveness of the RA algorithm and the impact of relay position and total power on the protocols' performance are illustrated by numerical experiments. The proposed protocol always leads to a maximum WSR equal to or greater than that for the benchmark one, and the performance gain of using the proposed one is significant especially when the relay is in close proximity to the source and the total power is low. Theoretical analysis is presented to interpret these observations.Comment: 8 figures, accepted and to be published in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1301.293

Jointly Optimal Channel Pairing and Power Allocation for Multichannel Multihop Relaying

We study the problem of channel pairing and power allocation in a multichannel multihop relay network to enhance the end-to-end data rate. Both amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) relaying strategies are considered. Given fixed power allocation to the channels, we show that channel pairing over multiple hops can be decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay, and a sorted-SNR channel pairing strategy is sum-rate optimal, where each relay pairs its incoming and outgoing channels by their SNR order. For the joint optimization of channel pairing and power allocation under both total and individual power constraints, we show that the problem can be decoupled into two subproblems solved separately. This separation principle is established by observing the equivalence between sorting SNRs and sorting channel gains in the jointly optimal solution. It significantly reduces the computational complexity in finding the jointly optimal solution. It follows that the channel pairing problem in joint optimization can be again decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay based on sorted channel gains. The solution for optimizing power allocation for DF relaying is also provided, as well as an asymptotically optimal solution for AF relaying. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate substantial performance gain of the jointly optimal solution over some suboptimal alternatives. It is also observed that more gain is obtained from optimal channel pairing than optimal power allocation through judiciously exploiting the variation among multiple channels. Impact of the variation of channel gain, the number of channels, and the number of hops on the performance gain is also studied through numerical examples.Comment: 15 pages. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin

Joint Spectrum Sensing and Resource Allocation for OFDM-based Transmission with a Cognitive Relay

In this paper, we investigate the joint spectrum sensing and resource allocation problem to maximize throughput capacity of an OFDM-based cognitive radio link with a cognitive relay. By applying a cognitive relay that uses decode and forward (D&F), we achieve more reliable communications, generating less interference (by needing less transmit power) and more diversity gain. In order to account for imperfections in spectrum sensing, the proposed schemes jointly modify energy detector thresholds and allocates transmit powers to all cognitive radio (CR) subcarriers, while simultaneously assigning subcarrier pairs for secondary users (SU) and the cognitive relay. This problem is cast as a constrained optimization problem with constraints on (1) interference introduced by the SU and the cognitive relay to the PUs; (2) miss-detection and false alarm probabilities and (3) subcarrier pairing for transmission on the SU transmitter and the cognitive relay and (4) minimum Quality of Service (QoS) for each CR subcarrier. We propose one optimal and two sub-optimal schemes all of which are compared to other schemes in the literature. Simulation results show that the proposed schemes achieve significantly higher throughput than other schemes in the literature for different relay situations.Comment: EAI Endorsed Transactions on Wireless Spectrum 14(1): e4 Published 13th Apr 201

Power minimization for OFDM Transmission with Subcarrier-pair based Opportunistic DF Relaying

This paper develops a sum-power minimized resource allocation (RA) algorithm subject to a sum-rate constraint for cooperative orthogonal frequency division modulation (OFDM) transmission with subcarrier-pair based opportunistic decode-and-forward (DF) relaying. The improved DF protocol first proposed in [1] is used with optimized subcarrier pairing. Instrumental to the RA algorithm design is appropriate definition of variables to represent source/relay power allocation, subcarrier pairing and transmission-mode selection elegantly, so that after continuous relaxation, the dual method and the Hungarian algorithm can be used to find an (at least approximately) optimum RA with polynomial complexity. Moreover, the bisection method is used to speed up the search of the optimum Lagrange multiplier for the dual method. Numerical results are shown to illustrate the power-reduction benefit of the improved DF protocol with optimized subcarrier pairing.Comment: 4 pages, accepted by IEEE Communications Letter

Novel Subcarrier-pair based Opportunistic DF Protocol for Cooperative Downlink OFDMA

A novel subcarrier-pair based opportunistic DF protocol is proposed for cooperative downlink OFDMA transmission aided by a decode-and-forward (DF) relay. Specifically, user message bits are transmitted in two consecutive equal-duration time slots. A subcarrier in the first slot can be paired with a subcarrier in the second slot for the DF relay-aided transmission to a user. In particular, the source and the relay can transmit simultaneously to implement beamforming at the subcarrier in the second slot for the relay-aided transmission. Each unpaired subcarrier in either the first or second slot is used by the source for direct transmission to a user without the relay's assistance. The sum rate maximized resource allocation (RA) problem is addressed for this protocol under a total power constraint. It is shown that the novel protocol leads to a maximum sum rate greater than or equal to that for a benchmark one, which does not allow the source to implement beamforming at the subcarrier in the second slot for the relay-aided transmission. Then, a polynomial-complexity RA algorithm is developed to find an (at least approximately) optimum resource allocation (i.e., source/relay power, subcarrier pairing and assignment to users) for either the proposed or benchmark protocol. Numerical experiments illustrate that the novel protocol can lead to a much greater sum rate than the benchmark one.Comment: 6 pages, accepted by 2013 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conferenc