Resource allocation and optimization techniques in wireless relay networks

Relay techniques have the potential to enhance capacity and coverage of a wireless network. Due to rapidly increasing number of smart phone subscribers and high demand for data intensive multimedia applications, the useful radio spectrum is becoming a scarce resource. For this reason, two way relay network and cognitive radio technologies are required for better utilization of radio spectrum. Compared to the conventional one way relay network, both the uplink and the downlink can be served simultaneously using a two way relay network. Hence the effective bandwidth efficiency is considered to be one time slot per transmission. Cognitive networks are wireless networks that consist of different types of users, a primary user (PU, the primary license holder of a spectrum band) and secondary users (SU, cognitive radios that opportunistically access the PU spectrum). The secondary users can access the spectrum of the licensed user provided they do not harmfully affect to the primary user. In this thesis, various resource allocation and optimization techniques have been investigated for wireless relay and cognitive radio networks

Channel assembling and resource allocation in multichannel spectrum sharing wireless networks

Submitted in fulfilment of the academic requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Engineering, in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2017The continuous evolution of wireless communications technologies has increasingly imposed a burden on the use of radio spectrum. Due to the proliferation of new wireless networks applications and services, the radio spectrum is getting saturated and becoming a limited resource. To a large extent, spectrum scarcity may be a result of deficient spectrum allocation and management policies, rather than of the physical shortage of radio frequencies. The conventional static spectrum allocation has been found to be ineffective, leading to overcrowding and inefficient use. Cognitive radio (CR) has therefore emerged as an enabling technology that facilitates dynamic spectrum access (DSA), with a great potential to address the issue of spectrum scarcity and inefficient use. However, provisioning of reliable and robust communication with seamless operation in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) is a challenging task. The underlying challenges include development of non-intrusive dynamic resource allocation (DRA) and optimization techniques. The main focus of this thesis is development of adaptive channel assembling (ChA) and DRA schemes, with the aim to maximize performance of secondary user (SU) nodes in CRNs, without degrading performance of primary user (PU) nodes in a primary network (PN). The key objectives are therefore four-fold. Firstly, to optimize ChA and DRA schemes in overlay CRNs. Secondly, to develop analytical models for quantifying performance of ChA schemes over fading channels in overlay CRNs. Thirdly, to extend the overlay ChA schemes into hybrid overlay and underlay architectures, subject to power control and interference mitigation; and finally, to extend the adaptive ChA and DRA schemes for multiuser multichannel access CRNs. Performance analysis and evaluation of the developed ChA and DRA is presented, mainly through extensive simulations and analytical models. Further, the cross validation has been performed between simulations and analytical results to confirm the accuracy and preciseness of the novel analytical models developed in this thesis. In general, the presented results demonstrate improved performance of SU nodes in terms of capacity, collision probability, outage probability and forced termination probability when employing the adaptive ChA and DRA in CRNs.CK201

Adaptive Precoding and Resource Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks

In this thesis, we develop efficient resource allocation and adaptive precoding schemes for two scenarios: multiuser MIMO-OFDM and multiuser MIMO based CR networks. In the context of the multiuser MIMO-OFDM CR network, we have developed resource allocation and adaptive precoding schemes for both the downlink (DL) and uplink (UL). The proposed schemes are characterized by both computational and spectral efficiencies. The adaptive precoder operates based on generating degrees of freedom (DoF). The resource allocation has been formulated as a sum-rate maximization problem subject to the upper-limit of total power and interference at primary user constraints. The formulated optimization problem is a mixed integer programming having a combinatorial complexity which is hard to solve, and therefore we separated it into a two-phase procedure to elaborate computational efficiency: Adaptive precoding (DoF assignment) and subcarrier mapping. From the implementation perspective, the resource allocation of the DL is central based processing, but the UL is semi-distributed based. The DL and UL problems are sorted out using the Lagrange multiplier theory which is regarded as an efficient alternative methodology compared to the convex optimization theory. The solution is not only characterized by low-complexity, but also by optimality. Numerical simulations illustrate remarkable spectral and SNR gains provided by the proposed schemes.In dieser Dissertation werden effiziente Ressourcenallokation und adaptive Vorkodierungsverfahren für zwei Szenarios entwickelt: Mehrbenutzer-MIMO-OFDM und Mehrbenutzer-MIMO jeweils basierend auf CR-Netzwerken. Im Bereich der Mehrbenutzer-MIMO-OFDM CR-Netzwerke wurden Verfahren zur Ressourcenallokation und zur adaptiven Vorkodierung jeweils für den Downlink (DL) und den Uplink (UL) entwickelt. Die Ressourcenallokation wurde als Optimierungsproblem formuliert, bei dem die Summenrate maximiert wird, wobei die Gesamtsendeleistung und die Interferenz an den Primärnutzern begrenzt ist. Das formulierte Optimierungsproblem ist ein sogenanntes Mixed-Integer-Programm, dessen kombinatorische Komplexität nur extrem aufwendig lösbar ist. Auf Grund dessen wurde es zur Komplexitätsreduktion in zwei Phasen aufgeteilt: Adaptive Vorkodierung (DoF-Zuordnung) und Subkanalzuordnung. Während die Ressourcenallokation für den DL aus Implementierungssicht ein zentralistischer Prozess ist, kann sie für den UL als semiverteilt eingeordnet werden. Die Aufgabe der zentralen Ressourcenallokation wird gelöst, um die zentrale adaptive Vorkodierung und die Subkanalzuordnung für UL und DL zu verwalten. Die Subkanalzuordnung ist für den DL optimal und effizient gelöst, indem das Problem als konvexes Problem modelliert ist. Für den UL wiederum ist das Problem trotz der Konvexität quasi-optimal gelöst, da in der Problemformulierung eine Begrenzung der Ressourcen pro Benutzer existiert

Studies on efficient spectrum sharing in coexisting wireless networks.

Wireless communication is facing serious challenges worldwide: the severe spectrum shortage along with the explosive increase of the wireless communication demands. Moreover, different communication networks may coexist in the same geographical area. By allowing multiple communication networks cooperatively or opportunistically sharing the same frequency will potentially enhance the spectrum efficiency. This dissertation aims to investigate important spectrum sharing schemes for coexisting networks. For coexisting networks operating in interweave cognitive radio mode, most existing works focus on the secondary network’s spectrum sensing and accessing schemes. However, the primary network can be selfish and tends to use up all the frequency resource. In this dissertation, a novel optimization scheme is proposed to let primary network maximally release unnecessary frequency resource for secondary networks. The optimization problems are formulated for both uplink and downlink orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA)-based primary networks, and near optimal algorithms are proposed as well. For coexisting networks in the underlay cognitive radio mode, this work focuses on the resource allocation in distributed secondary networks as long as the primary network’s rate constraint can be met. Global optimal multicarrier discrete distributed (MCDD) algorithm and suboptimal Gibbs sampler based Lagrangian algorithm (GSLA) are proposed to solve the problem distributively. Regarding to the dirty paper coding (DPC)-based system where multiple networks share the common transmitter, this dissertation focuses on its fundamental performance analysis from information theoretic point of view. Time division multiple access (TDMA) as an orthogonal frequency sharing scheme is also investigated for comparison purpose. Specifically, the delay sensitive quality of service (QoS) requirements are incorporated by considering effective capacity in fast fading and outage capacity in slow fading. The performance metrics in low signal to noise ratio (SNR) regime and high SNR regime are obtained in closed forms followed by the detailed performance analysis

A Robust Cooperative Spectrum Sensing-Assisted Multiuser Resource Allocation Scheme

Cognitive radio (CR), which is proposed as a solution for spectrum scarcity, imposes some threats to the network. One severe attack to cognitive radio network is the primary user emulation attack (PUEA), in which an attacker may transmit its signal with high power or mimic specific features of the primary user's signal to prevent secondary users from accessing the licensed spectrum. In this paper, we study a subcarrier and power allocation problem for orthogonal frequency division multiple access-(OFDMA-) based CR systems in the presence of PUEA. To maximize the system throughput while keeping the interference introduced to the primary user (PU) below given thresholds with a certain probability, a joint design of a robust cooperative spectrum sensing and a resource allocation scheme is proposed. In the proposed scheme, the inaccurate classification of PU signals and PUEA signals provided by robust cooperative spectrum sensing is utilized by resource scheduling module. To further exploit the underutilized spectrum bands, we also evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme in the hybrid overlay/underlay spectrum access mechanism. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme compared to conventional scheme regardless of the number of SUs or the kind of spectrum access mechanism being used