Resource Allocation in Relay Enhanced Broadband Wireless Access Networks

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Date

2010-09-28T14:54:26Z

Authors

Thulasiraman, Preetha

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University of Waterloo

Abstract

The use of relay nodes to improve the performance of broadband wireless access (BWA) networks has been the subject of intense research activities in recent years. Relay enhanced BWA networks are anticipated to support multimedia traffic (i.e., voice, video, and data traffic). In order to guarantee service to network users, efficient resource distribution is imperative. Wireless multihop networks are characterized by two inherent dynamic characteristics: 1) the existence of wireless interference and 2) mobility of user nodes. Both mobility and interference greatly influence the ability of users to obtain the necessary resources for service. In this dissertation we conduct a comprehensive research study on the topic of resource allocation in the presence of interference and mobility. Specifically, this dissertation investigates the impact interference and mobility have on various aspects of resource allocation, ranging from fairness to spectrum utilization. We study four important resource allocation algorithms for relay enhanced BWA networks. The problems and our research achievements are briefly outlined as follows. First, we propose an interference aware rate adaptive subcarrier and power allocation algorithm using maximum multicommodity flow optimization. We consider the impact of the wireless interference constraints using Signal to Interference Noise Ratio (SINR). We exploit spatial reuse to allocate subcarriers in the network and show that an intelligent reuse of resources can improve throughput while mitigating the impact of interference. We provide a sub-optimal heuristic to solve the rate adaptive resource allocation problem. We demonstrate that aggressive spatial reuse and fine tuned-interference modeling garner advantages in terms of throughput, end-to-end delay and power distribution. Second, we investigate the benefits of decoupled optimization of interference aware routing and scheduling using SINR and spatial reuse to improve the overall achievable throughput. We model the routing optimization problem as a linear program using maximum concurrent flows. We develop an optimization formulation to schedule the link traffic such that interference is mitigated and time slots are reused appropriately based on spatial TDMA (STDMA). The scheduling problem is shown to be NP-hard and is solved using the column generation technique. We compare our formulations to conventional counterparts in the literature and show that our approach guarantees higher throughput by mitigating the effect of interference effectively. Third, we investigate the problem of multipath flow routing and fair bandwidth allocation under interference constraints for multihop wireless networks. We first develop a novel isotonic routing metric, RI3M, considering the influence of interflow and intraflow interference. Second, in order to ensure QoS, an interference-aware max-min fair bandwidth allocation algorithm, LMX:M3F, is proposed where the lexicographically largest bandwidth allocation vector is found among all optimal allocation vectors while considering constraints of interference on the flows. We compare with various interference based routing metrics and interference aware bandwidth allocation algorithms established in the literature to show that RI3M and LMX:M3F succeed in improving network performance in terms of delay, packet loss ratio and bandwidth usage. Lastly, we develop a user mobility prediction model using the Hidden Markov Model(HMM) in which prediction control is transferred to the various fixed relay nodes in the network. Given the HMM prediction model, we develop a routing protocol which uses the location information of the mobile user to determine the interference level on links in its surrounding neighborhood. We use SINR as the routing metric to calculate the interference on a specific link (link cost). We minimize the total cost of routing as a cost function of SINR while guaranteeing that the load on each link does not exceed its capacity. The routing protocol is formulated and solved as a minimum cost flow optimization problem. We compare our SINR based routing algorithm with conventional counterparts in the literature and show that our algorithm reinforces routing paths with high link quality and low latency, therefore improving overall system throughput. The research solutions obtained in this dissertation improve the service reliability and QoS assurance of emerging BWA networks.

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Keywords

resource allocation, interference

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