Heterogeneity in wireless network architectures (i.e., the coexistence of 3G, LTE, 5G, WiFi, etc.) has become a key component of current and future generation cellular networks. Simultaneous aggregation of each client's traffic across multiple such radio access technologies (RATs) base stations (BSs) can significantly increase the system throughput, and has become an important feature of cellular standards on multi-RAT integration. Distributed algorithms that can realize the full potential of this aggregation are thus of great importance to operators. In this paper, we study the problem of resource allocation for multi-RAT traffic aggregation in HetNets (heterogeneous networks). Our goal is to ensure that the resources at each BS are allocated so that the aggregate throughput achieved by each client across its RATs satisfies a proportional fairness (PF) criterion. In particular, we provide a simple distributed algorithm for resource allocation at each BS that extends the PF allocation algorithm for a single BS. Despite its simplicity and lack of coordination across the BSs, we show that our algorithm converges to the desired PF solution and provide (tight) bounds on its convergence speed. We also study the characteristics of the optimal solution and use its properties to prove the optimality of our algorithm's outcomes.
Single-RAT Multi-BS Communication. Prior works have studied the problem of traffic aggregation when a client can simultaneously communicate with multiple same technology BSs. For example, @cite_26 uses game theory to model selfish traffic splitting by each client in WLANs. On the other hand, the resource allocation problem in HetNets is primarily addressed at the BS side. Similarly, @cite_17 proposes an approximation algorithm to address the problem of client association and traffic splitting in LTE DC. Our algorithm (AFRA) goes beyond this and other related work by guaranteeing optimal resource allocation for any number of RATs and BSs . Other works have developed centralized client association algorithms to achieve max-min @cite_21 and proportional fairness @cite_2 in multi-rate WLANs. In contrast, the problem of resource allocation in HetNets needs to be solved in a fully distributed manner.
@cite_26 @cite_2 @cite_21 @cite_17
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We consider the interference management problem in a multicell MIMO heterogeneous network. Within each cell there is a large number of distributed micro pico base stations (BSs) that can be potentially coordinated for joint transmission. To reduce coordination overhead, we consider user-centric BS clustering so that each user is served by only a small number of (potentially overlapping) BSs. Thus, given the channel state information, our objective is to jointly design the BS clustering and the linear beamformers for all BSs in the network. In this paper, we formulate this problem from a sparse optimization perspective, and propose an efficient algorithm that is based on iteratively solving a sequence of group LASSO problems. A novel feature of the proposed algorithm is that it performs BS clustering and beamformer design jointly rather than separately as is done in the existing approaches for partial coordinated transmission. Moreover, the cluster size can be controlled by adjusting a single penalty parameter in the nonsmooth regularized utility function. The convergence of the proposed algorithm (to a stationary solution) is guaranteed, and its effectiveness is demonstrated via extensive simulation. A challenging problem in multi-band multi-cell self-organized wireless systems, such as multi-channel Wi-Fi networks, femto pico cells in 3G 4G cellular networks, and more recent wireless networks over TV white spaces, is of distributed resource allocation. This involves four components: channel selection, client association, channel access, and client scheduling. In this paper, we present a unified framework for jointly addressing the four components with the global system objective of maximizing the clients throughput in a proportionally fair manner. Our formulation allows a natural dissociation of the problem into two sub-parts. We show that the first part, involving channel access and client scheduling, is convex and derive a distributed adaptation procedure for achieving Pareto-optimal solution. For the second part, involving channel selection and client association, we develop a Gibbs-sampler based approach for local adaptation to achieve the global objective, as well as derive fast greedy algorithms from it that achieve good solutions. In this paper, we study resource allocation for a multicarrier-based cognitive radio (CR) network. More specifically, we investigate the problem of secondary users’ energy-efficiency (EE) maximization problem under secondary total power and primary interference constraints. First, assuming cooperation among the secondary base stations (BSs), a centralized approach is considered to solve the EE optimization problem for the CR network where the primary and secondary users are using either orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) or filter bank based multicarrier (FBMC) modulations. We propose an alternating-based approach to solve the joint power-subcarrier allocation problem. More importantly, in the first place, subcarriers are allocated using a heuristic method for a given feasible power allocation. Then, we conservatively approximate the nonconvex power control problem and propose a joint successive convex approximation-Dinkelbach algorithm (SCADA) to efficiently obtain a solution to the nonconvex power control problem. The proposed algorithm is shown to converge to a solution that coincides with the stationary point of the original nonconvex power control subproblem. Moreover, we propose a dual decomposition-based decentralized version of the SCADA. Second, under the assumption of no cooperation among the secondary BSs, we propose a fully distributed power control algorithm from the perspective of game theory. The proposed algorithm is shown to converge to a Nash-equilibrium (NE) point. Moreover, we propose a sufficient condition that guarantees the uniqueness of the achieved NE. Extensive simulation analyses are further provided to highlight the advantages and demonstrate the efficiency of our proposed schemes. In a heterogeneous wireless cellular network, each user may be covered by multiple access points such as macro pico relay femto base stations (BS). An effective approach to maximize the sum utility (e.g., system throughput) in such a network is to jointly optimize users' linear procoders as well as their BS associations. In this paper, we first show that this joint optimization problem is NP-hard and thus is difficult to solve to global optimality. To find a locally optimal solution, we formulate the problem as a noncooperative game in which the users and the BSs both act as players. We introduce a set of new utility functions for the players and show that every Nash equilibrium (NE) of the resulting game is a stationary solution of the original sum utility maximization problem. Moreover, we develop a best-response type algorithm that allows the players to distributedly reach a NE of the game. Simulation results show that the proposed distributed algorithm can effectively relieve local BS congestion and simultaneously achieve high throughput and load balancing in a heterogeneous network. Heterogeneous wireless networks (HetNets) provide a powerful approach to meeting the dramatic mobile traffic growth, but also impose a significant challenge on backhaul. Caching and multicasting at macro and pico base stations (BSs) are two promising methods to support massive content delivery and reduce backhaul load in HetNets. In this paper, we jointly consider caching and multicasting in a large-scale cache-enabled HetNet with backhaul constraints. We propose a hybrid caching design consisting of identical caching in the macro-tier and random caching in the pico-tier, and a corresponding multicasting design. By carefully handling different types of interferers and adopting appropriate approximations, we derive tractable expressions for the successful transmission probability in the general signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and user density region as well as the high SNR and user density region, utilizing tools from stochastic geometry. Then, we consider the successful transmission probability maximization by optimizing design parameters, which is a very challenging mixed discrete-continuous optimization problem. By exploring structural properties, we obtain a near optimal solution with superior performance and manageable complexity. This solution achieves better performance in the general region than any asymptotically optimal solution, under a mild condition. The analysis and optimization results provide valuable design insights for practical cache-enabled HetNets. We consider a multi-cell wireless network with a large number of users. Each user selfishly chooses the Base Station (BS) that gives it the best throughput (utility), and each BS allocates its resource by some simple scheduling policy. First we consider two cases: (1) BS allocates the same time to its users; (2) BS allocates the same throughput to its users. It turns out that, combined with users' selfish behavior, case (1) results in a single Nash Equilibrium (NE), which achieves system-wide Proportional Fairness. On the other hand, case (2) results in many possible Nash Equilibria, some of which are very inefficient. Next, we extend (1) to the case where the users have general concave utility functions. It is shown that the if each BS performs intra- cell optimization, the total utility of all users is maximized at NE. This suggests that under our model, the task of joining the ";correct"; BS can be left to individual users, leading to a distributed solution. Heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets) are to be deployed for future wireless communication to meet the ever-increasing mobile traffic demand. However, the dense and random deployment of small cells and their uncoordinated operation raise important concerns about various costs issues, among which notably is energy efficiency. Base station (BS) cooperation is set to play a key role in managing interference in HetNets. In this paper, we consider BS cooperation in the downlink HetNets where BSs from different tiers within the respective cooperative clusters jointly transmit the same data to a typical user, and in particular focus on the optimization of the energy efficiency performance. First, based on a proposed clustering model, we derive the spectral efficiency using tools from stochastic geometry. Furthermore, we formulate a power minimization problem with a minimum spectral efficiency constraint and derive the optimal received signal strength (RSS) thresholds under certain approximation. Building upon these results, we could address the problem of how to design appropriate RSS thresholds, taking into account the tradeoff between spectral efficiency and energy efficiency. Simulations show that the proposed clustering model is more energy-saving than the geometric clustering model, and deploying a multitier HetNet is significantly more energy-saving compared to a macro-only network. This paper considers optimization of the user and base-station (BS) association in a wireless downlink heterogeneous cellular network under the proportional fairness criterion. We first consider the case where each BS has a single antenna and transmits at fixed power and propose a distributed price update strategy for a pricing-based user association scheme, in which the users are assigned to the BS based on the value of a utility function minus a price. The proposed price update algorithm is based on a coordinate descent method for solving the dual of the network utility maximization problem and it has a rigorous performance guarantee. The main advantage of the proposed algorithm as compared to an existing subgradient method for price update is that the proposed algorithm is independent of parameter choices and can be implemented asynchronously. Further, this paper considers the joint user association and BS power control problem and proposes an iterative dual coordinate descent and the power optimization algorithm that significantly outperforms existing approaches. Finally, this paper considers the joint user association and BS beamforming problem for the case where the BSs are equipped with multiple antennas and spatially multiplex multiple users. We incorporate dual coordinate descent with the weighted minimum mean-squared error (WMMSE) algorithm and show that it achieves nearly the same performance as a computationally more complex benchmark algorithm (which applies the WMMSE algorithm on the entire network for BS association) while avoiding excessive BS handover. In a two-tier heterogeneous network (HetNet) where femto access points (FAPs) with lower transmission power coexist with macro base stations (BSs) with higher transmission power, the FAPs may suffer significant performance degradation due to inter-tier interference. Introducing cognition into the FAPs through the spectrum sensing (or carrier sensing) capability helps them avoiding severe interference from the macro BSs and enhance their performance. In this paper, we use stochastic geometry to model and analyze performance of HetNets composed of macro BSs and cognitive FAPs in a multichannel environment. The proposed model explicitly accounts for the spatial distribution of the macro BSs, FAPs, and users in a Rayleigh fading environment. We quantify the performance gain in outage probability obtained by introducing cognition into the femto-tier, provide design guidelines, and show the existence of an optimal spectrum sensing threshold for the cognitive FAPs, which depends on the HetNet parameters. We also show that looking into the overall performance of the HetNets is quite misleading in the scenarios where the majority of users are served by the macro BSs. Therefore, the performance of femto-tier needs to be explicitly accounted for and optimized. The joint spectrum partition and user association problem for multi-tier heterogeneous networks is studied in this paper, where disjoint spectrums are allocated among tiers and users are associated with each tier with a biased received power. The random placement of base-stations (BSs) of different tiers are modeled using stochastic geometry, which accounts for their practical deployment and also makes analysis tractable. We derive an upper bound of the average user proportional fair utility based on the user coverage rate, from which we formulate a network utility maximization problem. The optimization of the proposed utility bound shows that the optimal spectrum allocation for each BS tier matches the average proportion of users associated with that tier. The solution to the optimization problem also provides closed-form expressions for the optimal user associated bias factors. Compared to system-level optimization solutions based on specific network topology and channel realization, our offline analytical approach offers deployment insights. Simulation results demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach. We study downlink beamforming in a single-cell network with a multi-antenna base station (BS) serving cache-enabled users. For a given common rate of the files in the system, we first formulate the minimum transmit power with beamforming at the BS as a non-convex optimization problem. This corresponds to a multiple multicast problem, to which a stationary solution can be efficiently obtained through successive convex approximation (SCA). It is observed that the complexity of the problem grows exponentially with the number of subfiles delivered to each user in each time slot, which itself grows exponentially with the number of users in the system. Therefore, we introduce a low-complexity alternative through time-sharing that limits the number of subfiles that can be received by a user in each time slot. It is shown through numerical simulations that, the reduced-complexity beamforming scheme has minimal performance gap compared to transmitting all the subfiles jointly, and outperforms the state-of-the-art low-complexity scheme at all SNR and rate values with sufficient spatial degrees of freedom, and in the high SNR high rate regime when the number of spatial degrees of freedom is limited. In many IEEE 802.11 WLAN deployments, wireless clients have a choice of access points (AP) to connect to. In current systems, clients associate with the access point with the strongest signal to noise ratio. However, such an association mechanism can lead to unequal load sharing, resulting in diminished system performance. In this paper, we first provide a numerical approach based on stochastic dynamic programming to find the optimal client-AP association algorithm for a small topology consisting of two access points. Using the value iteration algorithm, we determine the optimal association rule for the two-AP topology. Next, utilizing the insights obtained from the optimal association rule for the two-AP case, we propose a near-optimal heuristic that we call RAT. We test the efficacy of RAT by considering more realistic arrival patterns and a larger topology. Our results show that RAT performs very well in these scenarios as well. Moreover, RAT lends itself to a fairly simple implementation. In this paper, we study resource allocation and relay selection in a decode-and-forward downlink OFDMA cooperative network assuming imperfect channel state information (CSI) at the base station (BS). We assume that due to feedback delay, the BS has only outdated CSI of BS to users and inter-user links. We propose a centralized optimization framework in which the BS takes decisions on the basis of available outdated CSI given the conditional probability distribution of the current CSI. We approach the problem by using dual optimization framework, decompose it into per-subcarrier optimization problem, and develop an optimal resource allocation and relay selection algorithm. The proposed algorithm minimizes the total transmit power of the system by jointly selecting the best relay node for each source-destination pair, and optimally allocating power and subcarriers to the source and relay nodes under constraints on users' conditional expected data rates. The duality gaps of the solution are virtually zero. Furthermore, we show that the per-subcarrier decomposition of the problem reduces the complexity of the solution from exponential to polynomial. Simulation results show that the system performance may be badly affected by feedback delay. Simulation results also show that users' cooperation significantly reduces the power consumption compared to non-cooperative communication. Interference is a major performance bottleneck in Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) due to its multi-tier structure. We propose almost blank resource block (ABRB) for interference control in HetNet. When an ABRB is scheduled in a macro BS, a resource block (RB) with blank payload is transmitted and this eliminates the interference from this macro BS to the pico BSs. We study a two timescale hierarchical radio resource management (RRM) scheme for HetNet with dynamic ABRB control. The long term controls, such as dynamic ABRB, are adaptive to the large scale fading at a RRM server for co-Tier and cross-Tier interference control. The short term control (user scheduling) is adaptive to the local channel state information at each BS to exploit the multi-user diversity. The two timescale optimization problem is challenging due to the exponentially large solution space. We exploit the sparsity in the interference graph of the HetNet topology and derive structural properties for the optimal ABRB control. Based on that, we propose a two timescale alternative optimization solution for user scheduling and ABRB control. The solution has low complexity and is asymptotically optimal at high SNR. Simulations show that the proposed solution has significant gain over various baselines. We consider the distributed uplink resource allocation problem in a multi-carrier wireless network with multiple access points (APs). Each mobile user can optimize its own transmission rate by selecting a suitable AP and by controlling its transmit power. Our objective is to devise suitable algorithms by which mobile users can jointly perform these tasks in a distributed manner. Our approach relies on a game theoretic formulation of the joint power control and AP selection problem. In the proposed game, each user is a player with an associated strategy containing a discrete variable (the AP selection decision) and a continuous vector (the power allocation among multiple channels). We provide characterizations of the Nash Equilibrium of the proposed game. We present a novel algorithm named Joint Access Point Selection and Power Allocation (JASPA) and its various extensions (with different update schedules) that allow the users to efficiently optimize their rates. Finally, we study the properties of the proposed algorithms as well as their performance via extensive simulations. This paper considers the joint optimization of frequency reuse and base-station (BS) bias for user association in downlink heterogeneous networks for load balancing and intercell interference management. To make the analysis tractable, we assume that BSs are randomly deployed as point processes in multiple tiers, where BSs in each tier have different transmission powers and spatial densities. A utility maximization framework is formulated based on the user coverage rate, which is a function of the different BS biases for user association and different frequency reuse factors across BS tiers. Compared to previous works where the bias levels are heuristically determined and full reuse is adopted, we quantitatively compute the optimal user association bias and obtain the closed-form solution of the optimal frequency reuse. Interestingly, we find that the optimal bias and the optimal reuse factor of each BS tier have an inversely proportional relationship. Further, we also propose an iterative method for optimizing these two factors. In contrast to system-level optimization solutions based on specific channel realization and network topology, our approach is off-line and is useful for deriving deployment insights. Numerical results show that optimizing user association and frequency reuse for multi-tier heterogeneous networks can effectively improve cell-edge user rate performance and utility. In this paper, a novel framework is proposed to jointly optimize user association and resource allocation in the uplink cognitive femtocell network (CFN). In the considered CFN, femtocell base stations (FBSs) are deployed to serve a set of femtocell user equipments (FUEs) by reusing subchannels used in a macrocell base station (MBS). The problem of joint user association, subchannel assignment, and power allocation is formulated as an optimization problem, in which the goal is to maximize the overall uplink throughput while guaranteeing FBSs overloading avoidance, data rate requirements of the served FUEs, and MBS protection. To solve this problem, a distributed framework based on the matching game is proposed to model and analyze the interactions between the FUEs and FBSs. Using this framework, distributed algorithms are developed to enable the CFN to make decisions about user association, subchannel allocation, and transmit power. The algorithms are then shown to converge to a stable matching and exhibit a low computational complexity. Simulation results show that the proposed approach yields a performance improvement in terms of the overall network throughput and outage probability, with a small number of iterations to converge. This paper studies the joint user association and resource allocation in heterogeneous networks (HetNets) from a novel perspective, motivated by and generalizing the idea of fractional frequency reuse. By treating the multi-cell multi-user resource allocation as resource partitioning among multiple reuse patterns, we propose a unified framework to analyze and compare a wide range of user association and resource allocation strategies for HetNets, and provide an optimal benchmark for network performance. The enabling mechanisms are a novel formulation to consider all possible interference patterns or any pre-defined subset of patterns, and efficient sparsity-pursuit algorithms to find the solution. A notable feature of this formulation is that the patterns remain fixed during the resource optimization process. This creates a favorable opportunity for convex formulations while still considering interference coupling. More important, in view of the fact that multi-cell resource allocation is very computational demanding, our framework provides a systematic way to trade off performance for the reduction of computational complexity by restricting the candidate patterns to a small number of feature patterns. Relying on the sparsity-pursuit capability of the proposed algorithms, we develop a practical guideline to identify the feature patterns. Numerical results show that the identified feature patterns can significantly improve the existing strategies, and jointly optimizing the user association and resource allocation indeed brings considerable gain. Femtocells are recognized as effective for improving network coverage and capacity and for reducing power consumption due to the reduced range of wireless transmissions. Although highly appealing, a plethora of challenging problems need to be addressed for fully harvesting its potential. In this paper, we investigate the problem of cell association and service scheduling in femtocell networks. In addition to the general goal of offloading traffic from the macrobase station (BS), we also aim at minimizing the latency of service requested by the users, while considering both open and closed access strategies. We show that the cell association problem is NP-hard, and propose several near-optimal solution algorithms for assigning users to BSs, including a sequential fixing algorithm, a rounding approximation algorithm, a greedy approximation algorithm, and a randomized algorithm. For service scheduling, we develop an optimal algorithm to minimize the average waiting time for the users associated with the same BS. The proposed algorithms are analyzed with respect to performance bounds, approximation ratios, and optimality, and are evaluated with simulations. We 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.