Review on Radio Resource Allocation Optimization in LTE/LTE-Advanced using Game Theory

Recently, there has been a growing trend toward ap-plying game theory (GT) to various engineering fields in order to solve optimization problems with different competing entities/con-tributors/players. Researches in the fourth generation (4G) wireless network field also exploited this advanced theory to overcome long term evolution (LTE) challenges such as resource allocation, which is one of the most important research topics. In fact, an efficient de-sign of resource allocation schemes is the key to higher performance. However, the standard does not specify the optimization approach to execute the radio resource management and therefore it was left open for studies. This paper presents a survey of the existing game theory based solution for 4G-LTE radio resource allocation problem and its optimization

3G migration in Pakistan

The telecommunication industry in Pakistan has come a long way since the country\u27s independence in 1947. The initial era could be fairly termed as the PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) monopoly, for it was the sole provider of all telecommunication services across the country. It was not until four decades later that the region embarked into the new world of wireless communication, hence ending the decades old PTCL monopoly. By the end of the late 1990\u27s, government support and international investment in the region opened new doors to innovation and better quality, low cost, healthy competition. Wireless licenses for the private sector in the telecommunication industry triggered a promising chain of events that resulted in a drastic change in the telecommunication infrastructure and service profile. The newly introduced wireless (GSM) technology received enormous support from all stakeholders (consumers, regulatory body, and market) and caused a vital boost in Pakistan\u27s economy. Numerous tangential elements had triggered this vital move in the history of telecommunications in Pakistan. Entrepreneurs intended to test the idea of global joint ventures in the East and hence the idea of international business became a reality. The technology had proven to be a great success in the West, while Pakistan\u27s telecom consumer had lived under the shadow of PTCL dominance for decades and needed more flexibility. At last the world was moving from wired to wireless! Analysts termed this move as the beginning of a new era. The investors, telecommunication businesses, and Pakistani treasury prospered. It was a win-win situation for all involved. The learning curve was steep for both operators and consumers but certainly improved over time. In essence, the principle of deploying the right technology in the right market at the right time led to this remarkable success. The industry today stands on the brink of a similar crossroads via transition from second generation to something beyond. With the partial success of 3G in Europe and the USA, the government has announced the release of three 3G licenses by mid 2009. This decision is not yet fully supported by all but still initiated parallel efforts by the operators and the vendors to integrate this next move into their existing infrastructure

Traffic Scheduling in Point-to-Multipoint OFDMA-based Systems

The new generation of wireless networks (e.g., WiMAX, LTE-Advanced, Cognitive Radio) support many high resource-consuming services (e.g., VoIP, video conference, multiplayer interactive gaming, multimedia streaming, digital video broadcasting, mobile commerce). The main problem of such networks is that the bandwidth is limited, besides to be subject to fading process, and shared among multiple users. Therefore, a combination of sophisticated transmission techniques (e.g., OFDMA) and proper packet scheduling algorithms is necessary, in order to provide applications with suitable quality of service. This Thesis addresses the problem of traffic scheduling in Point-to-Multipoint OFDMA-based systems. We formally prove that in such systems, even a simple scheduling problem of a Service Class at a time, is NP-complete, therefore, computationally intractable. An optimal solution is unfeasible in term of time, thus, fast and simple scheduling heuristics are needed. First, we address the Best Effort traffic scheduling issue, in a system adopting variable-length Frames, with the objective of producing a legal schedule (i.e., the one meeting all system constraints) of minimum length. Besides, we present fast and simple heuristics, which generate suboptimal solutions, and evaluate their performance in the average case, as in the worst one. Then, we investigate the scheduling of Real Time traffic, with the objective of meeting as many deadlines as possible, or equivalently, minimizing the packet drop ratio. Specifically, we propose two scheduling heuristics, which apply two different resource allocation mechanisms, and evaluate their average-case performance by means of a simulation experiment

Self-organising network management for heterogeneous LTE-advanced networks

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University LondonSince 2004, when the Long Term Evolution (LTE) was first proposed to be publicly available in the year 2009, a plethora of new characteristics, techniques and applications have been constantly enhancing it since its first release, over the past decade. As a result, the research aims for LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) have been released to create a ubiquitous and supportive network for mobile users. The incorporation of heterogeneous networks (HetNets) has been proposed as one of the main enhancements of LTE-A systems over the existing LTE releases, by proposing the deployment of small-cell applications, such as femtocells, to provide more coverage and quality of service (QoS) within the network, whilst also reducing capital expenditure. These principal advantages can be obtained at the cost of new challenges such as inter-cell interference, which occurs when different network applications share the same frequency channel in the network. In this thesis, the main challenges of HetNets in LTE-A platform have been addressed and novel solutions are proposed by using self-organising network (SON) management approaches, which allows the cooperative cellular systems to observe, decide and amend their ongoing operation based on network conditions. The novel SON algorithms are modelled and simulated in OPNET modeler simulation software for the three processes of resource allocation, mobility management and interference coordination in multi-tier macro-femto networks. Different channel allocation methods based on cooperative transmission, frequency reuse and dynamic spectrum access are investigated and a novel SON sub-channel allocation method is proposed based on hybrid fractional frequency reuse (HFFR) scheme to provide dynamic resource allocation between macrocells and femtocells, while avoiding co-tier and cross-tier interference. Mobility management is also addressed as another important issue in HetNets, especially in hand-ins from macrocell to femtocell base stations. The existing research considers a limited number of methods for handover optimisation, such as signal strength and call admission control (CAC) to avoid unnecessary handovers, while our novel SON handover management method implements a comprehensive algorithm that performs sensing process, as well as resource availability and user residence checks to initiate the handover process at the optimal time. In addition to this, the novel femto over macro priority (FoMP) check in this process also gives the femtocell target nodes priority over the congested macrocells in order to improve the QoS at both the network tiers. Inter-cell interference, as the key challenge of HetNets, is also investigated by research on the existing time-domain, frequency-domain and power control methods. A novel SON interference mitigation algorithm is proposed, which is based on enhanced inter-cell interference coordination (eICIC) with power control process. The 3-phase power control algorithm contains signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) measurements, channel quality indicator (CQI) mapping and transmission power amendments to avoid the occurrence of interference due to the effects of high transmission power. The results of this research confirm that if heterogeneous systems are backed-up with SON management strategies, not only can improve the network capacity and QoS, but also the new network challenges such as inter-cell interference can also be mitigated in new releases of LTE-A network

Portfolio peak algorithms achieving superior performance for maximizing throughput in WiMAX networks

The Mobile WiMAX IEEE 802.16 standards ensure provision of last mile wireless access, variable and high data rate, point to multi-point communication, large frequency range and QoS (Quality of Service) for various types of applications. The WiMAX standards are published by the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and specify the standards of services and transmissions. However, the way how to run these services and when the transmission should be started are not specified in the IEEE standards and it is up to computer scientists to design scheduling algorithms that can best meet the standards. Finding the best way to implement the WiMAX standards through designing efficient scheduler algorithms is a very important component in wireless systems and the scheduling period presents the most common challenging issue in terms of throughput and time delay. The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to design and develop an efficient scheduling algorithm to provide the QoS support for real-time and non-real-time services with the WiMAX Network. This was achieved by combining a portfolio of algorithms, which will control and update transmission with the required algorithm by the various portfolios for supporting QoS such as; the guarantee of a maximum throughput for real-time and non-real-time traffic. Two algorithms were designed in this process and will be discussed in this thesis: Fixed Portfolio Algorithms and Portfolio Peak Algorithm. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithms and test their efficiency for IEEE 802.16 networks, the authors simulated the algorithms in the NS2 simulator. Evaluation of the proposed Portfolio algorithms was carried out through comparing its performance with those of the conventional algorithms. On the other hand, the proposed Portfolio scheduling algorithm was evaluated by comparing its performance in terms of throughput, delay, and jitter. The simulation results suggest that the Fixed Portfolio Algorithms and the Portfolio Peak Algorithm achieve higher performance in terms of throughput than all other algorithms. Keywords: WiMAX, IEEE802.16, QoS, Scheduling Algorithms, Fixed Portfolio Algorithms, and Portfolio Peak Algorithms.The Mobile WiMAX IEEE 802.16 standards ensure provision of last mile wireless access, variable and high data rate, point to multi-point communication, large frequency range and QoS (Quality of Service) for various types of applications. The WiMAX standards are published by the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and specify the standards of services and transmissions. However, the way how to run these services and when the transmission should be started are not specified in the IEEE standards and it is up to computer scientists to design scheduling algorithms that can best meet the standards. Finding the best way to implement the WiMAX standards through designing efficient scheduler algorithms is a very important component in wireless systems and the scheduling period presents the most common challenging issue in terms of throughput and time delay. The aim of the research presented in this thesis was to design and develop an efficient scheduling algorithm to provide the QoS support for real-time and non-real-time services with the WiMAX Network. This was achieved by combining a portfolio of algorithms, which will control and update transmission with the required algorithm by the various portfolios for supporting QoS such as; the guarantee of a maximum throughput for real-time and non-real-time traffic. Two algorithms were designed in this process and will be discussed in this thesis: Fixed Portfolio Algorithms and Portfolio Peak Algorithm. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithms and test their efficiency for IEEE 802.16 networks, the authors simulated the algorithms in the NS2 simulator. Evaluation of the proposed Portfolio algorithms was carried out through comparing its performance with those of the conventional algorithms. On the other hand, the proposed Portfolio scheduling algorithm was evaluated by comparing its performance in terms of throughput, delay, and jitter. The simulation results suggest that the Fixed Portfolio Algorithms and the Portfolio Peak Algorithm achieve higher performance in terms of throughput than all other algorithms. Keywords: WiMAX, IEEE802.16, QoS, Scheduling Algorithms, Fixed Portfolio Algorithms, and Portfolio Peak Algorithms

Enabling Quality-Driven Scalable Video Transmission over Multi-User NOMA System

Recently, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been proposed to achieve higher spectral efficiency over conventional orthogonal multiple access. Although it has the potential to meet increasing demands of video services, it is still challenging to provide high performance video streaming. In this research, we investigate, for the first time, a multi-user NOMA system design for video transmission. Various NOMA systems have been proposed for data transmission in terms of throughput or reliability. However, the perceived quality, or the quality-of-experience of users, is more critical for video transmission. Based on this observation, we design a quality-driven scalable video transmission framework with cross-layer support for multi-user NOMA. To enable low complexity multi-user NOMA operations, a novel user grouping strategy is proposed. The key features in the proposed framework include the integration of the quality model for encoded video with the physical layer model for NOMA transmission, and the formulation of multi-user NOMA-based video transmission as a quality-driven power allocation problem. As the problem is non-concave, a global optimal algorithm based on the hidden monotonic property and a suboptimal algorithm with polynomial time complexity are developed. Simulation results show that the proposed multi-user NOMA system outperforms existing schemes in various video delivery scenarios.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. This paper has already been accepted by IEEE INFOCOM 201

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