A Centralized and Scalable Uplink Power Control Algorithm in Low SINR Scenarios

Power control is becoming increasingly essential for the fifth-generation (5G) and beyond systems. An example use-case, among others, is the unmanned-aerial-vehicle (UAV) communications where the nearly line-of-sight (LoS) radio channels may result in very low signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs). Investigations in [1] proposed to efficiently and reliably solve this kind of non-convex problem via a series of geometrical programmings (GPs) using condensation approximation. However, it is only applicable for a small-scale network with several communication pairs and practically infeasible with more (e.g. tens of) nodes to be jointly optimized. We therefore in this paper aim to provide new insights into this problem. By properly introducing auxiliary variables, the problem is transformed to an equivalent form which is simpler and more intuitive for condensation. A novel condensation method with linear complexity is also proposed based on the form. The enhancements make the GP-based power control feasible for both small-and especially large-scale networks that are common in 5G and beyond. The algorithm is verified via simulations. A preliminary case study of uplink UAV communications also shows the potential of the algorithm.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technolog

Learning Decentralized Wireless Resource Allocations with Graph Neural Networks

We consider the broad class of decentralized optimal resource allocation problems in wireless networks, which can be formulated as a constrained statistical learning problems with a localized information structure. We develop the use of Aggregation Graph Neural Networks (Agg-GNNs), which process a sequence of delayed and potentially asynchronous graph aggregated state information obtained locally at each transmitter from multi-hop neighbors. We further utilize model-free primal-dual learning methods to optimize performance subject to constraints in the presence of delay and asynchrony inherent to decentralized networks. We demonstrate a permutation equivariance property of the resulting resource allocation policy that can be shown to facilitate transference to dynamic network configurations. The proposed framework is validated with numerical simulations that exhibit superior performance to baseline strategies.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Power Allocation for Uplink Communications of Massive Cellular-Connected UAVs

Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has attracted a surge of research interest in both academia and industry. To support aerial user equipment (UEs) in the existing cellular networks, one promising approach is to assign a portion of the system bandwidth exclusively to the UAV-UEs. This is especially favorable for use cases where a large number of UAV-UEs are exploited, e.g., for package delivery close to a warehouse. Although the nearly line-of-sight (LoS) channels can result in higher powers received, UAVs can in turn cause severe interference to each other in the same frequency band. In this contribution, we focus on the uplink communications of massive cellular-connected UAVs. Different power allocation algorithms are proposed to either maximize the minimal spectrum efficiency (SE) or maximize the overall SE to cope with severe interference based on the successive convex approximation (SCA) principle. One of the challenges is that a UAV can affect a large area meaning that many more UAV-UEs must be considered in the optimization problem, which is essentially different from that for terrestrial UEs. The necessity of single-carrier uplink transmission further complicates the problem. Nevertheless, we find that the special property of large coherent bandwidths and coherent times of the propagation channels can be leveraged. The performances of the proposed algorithms are evaluated via extensive simulations in the full-buffer transmission mode and bursty-traffic mode. Results show that the proposed algorithms can effectively enhance the uplink SEs. This work can be considered the first attempt to deal with the interference among massive cellular-connected UAV-UEs with optimized power allocations

Power Allocation for Uplink Communications of Massive Cellular-Connected UAVs

Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has attracted a surge of research interest in both academia and industry. To support aerial user equipment (UEs) in the existing cellular networks, one promising approach is to assign a portion of the system bandwidth exclusively to the UAV-UEs. This is especially favorable for use cases where a large number of UAV-UEs are exploited, e.g., for package delivery close to a warehouse. Although the nearly line-of-sight (LoS) channels can result in higher powers received, UAVs can in turn cause severe interference to each other in the same frequency band. In this contribution, we focus on the uplink communications of massive cellular-connected UAVs. Different power allocation algorithms are proposed to either maximize the minimal spectrum efficiency (SE) or maximize the overall SE to cope with severe interference based on the successive convex approximation (SCA) principle. One of the challenges is that a UAV can affect a large area meaning that many more UAV-UEs must be considered in the optimization problem, which is essentially different from that for terrestrial UEs. The necessity of single-carrier uplink transmission further complicates the problem. Nevertheless, we find that the special property of large coherent bandwidths and coherent times of the propagation channels can be leveraged. The performances of the proposed algorithms are evaluated via extensive simulations in the full-buffer transmission mode and bursty-traffic mode. Results show that the proposed algorithms can effectively enhance the uplink SEs. This work can be considered the first attempt to deal with the interference among massive cellular-connected UAV-UEs with optimized power allocations

Joint Optimization on Inter-cell Interference Management and User Attachment in LTE-A HetNets

International audienceTo optimize the network utility in 3GPP Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) heterogeneous networks (HetNets), it is necessary to jointly consider inter-cell interference mitigation and user attachment. Based on potential game formulation, we optimize almost blank subframe (ABS) and/or cell selection bias (CSB) settings for both macrocells and picocells in a distributed manner. We demonstrate the need of joint ABS and CSB optimization via simulation case studies. Extensive simulations confirm that joint ABS and CSB optimizations can lead to a 20% improvement in spectral efficiency and a 46% improvement in energy efficiency while increasing the fairness of the achieved rates of users

Self-Organized Resource Allocation in LTE Systems with Weighted Proportional Fairness

International audienceWe consider the problem of LTE network self organization and optimization of resource allocation. One particular challenge for LTE systems is that, by applying OFDMA, a transmission may use multiple resource blocks scheduled over the frequency and time. There are three key components involved in the resource allocation and network optimization: resource block scheduling, power control, and client association. We propose a distributed protocol that aims to achieve weighted proportional fairness (WPF) among clients by jointly consider them. The cross-layer design includes: (i) an optimal online policy for resource block scheduling, (ii) a heuristic for transmit power control, and (iii) a selfish strategy for client association. The proposed scheme only requires limited local information exchange and thus can be easily implemented for large networks. Simulation results have shown its effectiveness in both the system throughput and user fairness

Efficient radio resource management for future generation heterogeneous wireless networks

The heterogeneous deployment of small cells (e.g., femtocells) in the coverage area of the traditional macrocells is a cost-efficient solution to provide network capacity, indoor coverage and green communications towards sustainable environments in the future fifth generation (5G) wireless networks. However, the unplanned and ultra-dense deployment of femtocells with their uncoordinated operations will result in technical challenges such as severe interference, a significant increase in total energy consumption, unfairness in radio resource sharing and inadequate quality of service provisioning. Therefore, there is a need to develop efficient radio resource management algorithms that will address the above-mentioned technical challenges. The aim of this thesis is to develop and evaluate new efficient radio resource management algorithms that will be implemented in cognitive radio enabled femtocells to guarantee the economical sustainability of broadband wireless communications and users' quality of service in terms of throughput and fairness. Cognitive Radio (CR) technology with the Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) and stochastic process are the key technologies utilized in this research to increase the spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency at limited interference. This thesis essentially investigates three research issues relating to the efficient radio resource management: Firstly, a self-organizing radio resource management algorithm for radio resource allocation and interference management is proposed. The algorithm considers the effect of imperfect spectrum sensing in detecting the available transmission opportunities to maximize the throughput of femtocell users while keeping interference below pre-determined thresholds and ensuring fairness in radio resource sharing among users. Secondly, the effect of maximizing the energy efficiency and the spectrum efficiency individually on radio resource management is investigated. Then, an energy-efficient radio resource management algorithm and a spectrum-efficient radio resource management algorithm are proposed for green communication, to improve the probabilities of spectrum access and further increase the network capacity for sustainable environments. Also, a joint maximization of the energy efficiency and spectrum efficiency of the overall networks is considered since joint optimization of energy efficiency and spectrum efficiency is one of the goals of 5G wireless networks. Unfortunately, maximizing the energy efficiency results in low performance of the spectrum efficiency and vice versa. Therefore, there is an investigation on how to balance the trade-off that arises when maximizing both the energy efficiency and the spectrum efficiency simultaneously. Hence, a joint energy efficiency and spectrum efficiency trade-off algorithm is proposed for radio resource allocation in ultra-dense heterogeneous networks based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access. Lastly, a joint radio resource allocation with adaptive modulation and coding scheme is proposed to minimize the total transmit power across femtocells by considering the location and the service requirements of each user in the network. The performance of the proposed algorithms is evaluated by simulation and numerical analysis to demonstrate the impact of ultra-dense deployment of femtocells on the macrocell networks. The results show that the proposed algorithms offer improved performance in terms of throughput, fairness, power control, spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency. Also, the proposed algorithms display excellent performance in dynamic wireless environments