Joint Subcarrier and Power Allocation in NOMA: Optimal and Approximate Algorithms

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a promising technology to increase the spectral efficiency and enable massive connectivity in 5G and future wireless networks. In contrast to orthogonal schemes, such as OFDMA, NOMA multiplexes several users on the same frequency and time resource. Joint subcarrier and power allocation problems (JSPA) in NOMA are NP-hard to solve in general. In this family of problems, we consider the weighted sum-rate (WSR) objective function as it can achieve various tradeoffs between sum-rate performance and user fairness. Because of JSPA's intractability, a common approach in the literature is to solve separately the power control and subcarrier allocation (also known as user selection) problems, therefore achieving sub-optimal result. In this work, we first improve the computational complexity of existing single-carrier power control and user selection schemes. These improved procedures are then used as basic building blocks to design new algorithms, namely Opt-JSPA, $\varepsilon$-JSPA and Grad-JSPA. Opt-JSPA computes an optimal solution with lower complexity than current optimal schemes in the literature. It can be used as a benchmark for optimal WSR performance in simulations. However, its pseudo-polynomial time complexity remains impractical for real-world systems with low latency requirements. To further reduce the complexity, we propose a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme called $\varepsilon$-JSPA. Since, no approximation has been studied in the literature, $\varepsilon$-JSPA stands out by allowing to control a tight trade-off between performance guarantee and complexity. Finally, Grad-JSPA is a heuristic based on gradient descent. Numerical results show that it achieves near-optimal WSR with much lower complexity than existing optimal methods

Design of Coded Slotted ALOHA with Interference Cancellation Errors

International audienceCoded Slotted ALOHA (CSA) is a random access scheme based on the application of packet erasure correcting codes to transmitted packets and the use of successive interference cancellation at the receiver. CSA has been widely studied and a common assumption is that interference cancellation can always be applied perfectly. In this paper, we study the design of CSA protocol, accounting for a non-zero probability of error due to imperfect interference cancellation (IC). A classical method to evaluate the performance of such protocols is density evolution, originating from coding theory, and that we adapt to our assumptions. Analyzing the convergence of density evolution in asymptotic conditions, we derive the optimal parameters of CSA, i.e., the set of code selection probabilities of users that maximizes the channel load. A new parameter is introduced to model the packet loss rate of the system, which is non-zero due to potential IC errors. Multi-packet reception (MPR) and the performance of 2-MPR are also studied. We investigate the trade-off between optimal load and packet loss rate, which sheds light on new optimal distributions that outperform known ones. Finally, we show that our asymptotic analytical results are consistent with simulations obtained on a finite number of slots

CARA: Connectivity-Aware Relay Algorithm for Multi-Robot Expeditions

The exploration of unknown environments is an essential application of multi-robot systems, particularly in critical missions, such as hazard detection and search and rescue. These missions share the need to reach full coverage of the explorable space in the shortest time possible. To minimize the completion time, robots in the fleet must be able to reliably exchange information about the environment with one another. One of the main methods to expand coverage is by placing relays. Existing relay-placement algorithms tend to either require prior knowledge of the environment, or they rely on maintaining specific distances between the relays and the rest of the robots. These approaches lack flexibility and adaptability to the environment. This paper introduces the “Connectivity-Aware Relay Algorithm” (CARA), a dynamic context-aware relay-placement algorithm that does not require any prior knowledge of the environment. We compare CARA against a state-of-the-art distance-based relay-placement algorithm. Our results demonstrate that CARA outperformed the state-of-the-art algorithm in terms of the time to completion by a factor of 10 as it placed, on average, half the number of relays

Design of Coded Slotted ALOHA with Interference Cancellation Errors

International audienceCoded Slotted ALOHA (CSA) is a random access scheme based on the application of packet erasure correcting codes to transmitted packets and the use of successive interference cancellation at the receiver. CSA has been widely studied and a common assumption is that interference cancellation can always be applied perfectly. In this paper, we study the design of CSA protocol, accounting for a non-zero probability of error due to imperfect interference cancellation (IC). A classical method to evaluate the performance of such protocols is density evolution, originating from coding theory, and that we adapt to our assumptions. Analyzing the convergence of density evolution in asymptotic conditions, we derive the optimal parameters of CSA, i.e., the set of code selection probabilities of users that maximizes the channel load. A new parameter is introduced to model the packet loss rate of the system, which is non-zero due to potential IC errors. Multi-packet reception (MPR) and the performance of 2-MPR are also studied. We investigate the trade-off between optimal load and packet loss rate, which sheds light on new optimal distributions that outperform known ones. Finally, we show that our asymptotic analytical results are consistent with simulations obtained on a finite number of slots

Design of Coded Slotted ALOHA with Interference Cancellation Errors

International audienceCoded Slotted ALOHA (CSA) is a random access scheme based on the application of packet erasure correcting codes to transmitted packets and the use of successive interference cancellation at the receiver. CSA has been widely studied and a common assumption is that interference cancellation can always be applied perfectly. In this paper, we study the design of CSA protocol, accounting for a non-zero probability of error due to imperfect interference cancellation (IC). A classical method to evaluate the performance of such protocols is density evolution, originating from coding theory, and that we adapt to our assumptions. Analyzing the convergence of density evolution in asymptotic conditions, we derive the optimal parameters of CSA, i.e., the set of code selection probabilities of users that maximizes the channel load. A new parameter is introduced to model the packet loss rate of the system, which is non-zero due to potential IC errors. Multi-packet reception (MPR) and the performance of 2-MPR are also studied. We investigate the trade-off between optimal load and packet loss rate, which sheds light on new optimal distributions that outperform known ones. Finally, we show that our asymptotic analytical results are consistent with simulations obtained on a finite number of slots

Proportional Fair Scheduling for Downlink mmWave Multi-User MISO-NOMA Systems

International audienceIn this paper, we study non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) user scheduling and resource allocation problem for a generic downlink single-cell multiple input and single output (MISO) millimeter wave (mmWave) system. The larger number of packed antennas and the highly directional property of mmWave communications enable directional beamforming to achieve spatial diversity. Toward this end, we consider two different hybrid precoding schemes which are based on orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP). Users are assigned into different clusters and the base station (BS) transmits superposed signals that share the same precoding vector. Moreover, both fixed number of users per cluster and dynamic number of users per cluster are investigated. We aim to jointly optimize the user clustering, service scheduling, and power allocation strategy, in maximizing the proportional fairness (PF) among the users and exploring the multiuser diversity and multiplexing gain. Since the formulated joint user clustering, scheduling and power allocation problem is a mixed integer non-convex optimization problem, we propose a twofold methodology. First, we apply a hybrid precoding and user clustering scheme, where the hybrid precoder is constructed by singular vector division (SVD) or minimum mean square error (MMSE). Then, with the obtained result, we approximate the proportional fairness power allocation problem by a sequence of Geometric Programming (GP) problems which are solved iteratively. The proposed scheme strikes a balance between the spectral efficiency and service fairness. Results show that the proposed MISO-NOMA scheme which is based on MMSE hybrid precoder and the proposed user scheduling and power allocation strategy under proportional fairness metric can outperform various conventional MISO schemes. Furthermore, our proposed dynamic number of users per cluster scheme outperforms the fixed scheme and can be considered as an upper bound in several aspects, including spectral efficiency and fairness

Double Iterative Waterfilling for Sum Rate Maximization in Multicarrier NOMA Systems

International audienceThis paper investigates the subcarrier and power allocation for the downlink of a multicarrier non-orthogonal multiple access (MC-NOMA) system. A three-step algorithm is proposed to deal with the sum rate maximization problem. In Step 1, we assume that each user can use all the subcarriers simultaneously and apply the synchronous iterative waterfilling algorithm (SIWA) to obtain a power vector for each user. In Step 2, subcarriers are assigned to users by a heuristic greedy method based on the achieved power allocation result of Step 1. In Step 3, SIWA is used once again to further improve the system performance with the obtained subcarrier assignment result of Step 2. The convergence of SIWA in Step 3 is proved when the number of multiplexed users is no more than two. Since SIWA is applied twice, we call our three-step method Double Iterative Waterfilling Algorithm (DIWA). Numerical results show that the proposed DIWA achieves comparable performance to an existing near-optimal solution but with much lower time complexity