Resource Allocation for Wireless Relay Networks

Hanan Hassan Al-Tous

Abstract

In this thesis, we propose several resource allocation strategies for relay networks in the context of joint power and bandwidth allocation and relay selection, and joint power allocation and subchannel assignment for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems. Sharing the two best ordered relays with equal power between the two users over Rayleigh flat fading channels is proposed to establish full diversity order for both users. Closed form expressions for the outage probability, and bit error probability (BEP) performance measures for both amplify and forward (AF) decode and forward (DF) cooperative communication schemes are developed for different scenarios. To utilize the full potentials of relay-assisted transmission in multi user systems, we proposed a mixed strategy of AF relaying and direct transmission, where the user transmits part of the using the relay, and the other part is transmitted using the direct link. The resource allocation problem is formulated to maximize the sum rate. A recursive algorithm alternating between power allocation and bandwidth allocation step is proposed to solve the formulated resource allocation problem. Due to the conflict between limited wireless resources and the fast growing wireless demands, Stackelberg game is proposed to allocate the relay resource (power and bandwidth) between competing users, aiming to maximize the relay benefits from selling its resources. We prove the uniqueness of Stackelberg Nash Equilibrium (SNE) for the proposed game. We developed a distributed algorithm to reach SNE, and investigate the conditions for the stability of the proposed algorithm. We propose low complexity algorithms for AF-OFDMA and DF-OFDMA systems to assign the subcarriers to the users based on high SNR approximation aiming to maximize the weighted sum rate. Auction framework is proposed to devise competition based solutions for the resource allocation of AF-OFDMA aiming to maximize either the sum rate or the fairness index. Two auction algorithms are proposed; sequential and one-shot auctions. In sequential auction, the users evaluate the subcarrier based on an estimate of the Shapley value and bids on all subcarriers at once.