The uplink of code division multiple access (CDMA) cellular radio systems is often interference limited. The interference originates from many users whose transmission powers are not observable for the system. This thesis introduces uplink load and applies means of explicitly considering the users’ radio environment when approximating and controlling the load. A desirable property of all cellular radio systems is uplink feasibility, i.e., existence of finite user transmission powers to support the allocated services. Uplink load can be considered as a measure of how far from infeasibility the system is. The performed characterization of uplink load lead to two concrete definitions related to the amount of received and transmitted power, respectively. An important part of the total load is the intercell load which is caused by users connected to neighboring base stations. If not carefully handled, the intercell load can jeopardize uplink feasibility. Conversely, knowledge of a lower intercell load can be used to increase the resource assignments. A common denominator in all the work in this thesis is that the intercell load is explicitly considered. When approximating uplink load, a centralized approach is adopted to study information gathered in several base stations. This yields good approximations of the average load. However, centralized approximations can not detect momentarily peaks in the load. A number of resource allocation algorithms making control decisions in the local base stations are proposed based on experience from characterizing uplink load. As the algorithms study the intercell load, yet without measuring the interference power, they are robust in the sense that they will never assign resources yielding an infeasible system. A straightforward way of controlling the uplink load is to use measurements of the received interference power. This approach, just as the proposed load approximations, can gain from knowing the background noise power. The same framework used for designing robust resource allocation algorithms, is also used for estimating the background noise power.

In the LTE mobile system, all cells use the same set of frequencies. This means that a user could experience interference from other cells. A method that has been studied in order to reduce this interference and thereby increase data rate or system throughput is to coordinate scheduling between cells. Good results of this have been found in different studies. However, the interference is generally assumed to be known. Studies using estimated interference and simulating more than one cluster of cells have found almost no gain. This thesis will focus on how to use information from coordinated scheduling and other traffic estimates to do better interference estimation and link adaption. The suggested method is to coordinate larger clusters and use the coordination information, as well as estimates of which cells will be transmitting, to make estimates of interference from other cells. The additional information from interference estimation is used in the link adaptation. Limitations in bandwidth of the backhaul needed to send data between cells are considered, as well as the delay it may introduce. A limitation of the scope is that MIMO or HetNet scenarios have not been simulated. The suggested method for interference estimation and link adaptation have been implemented and simulated in a system simulator. The method gives a less biased estimate of SINR, but there are no gains in user bit rate. The lesser bias is since the method is better at predicting high SINR than the base estimate is. The lack of gains regarding user bit rate may result from the fact that in the studied scenarios, users where not able to make use of the higher estimated SINR since the base estimate is already high. The conclusion is that the method might be useful in scenarios where there are not full load, but the users either have bad channel quality or are able to make use of very high SINR. Such scenarios could be HetNet or MIMO scenarios, respectively.

Las demandas y expectativas de los usuarios y operadores móviles crecen sin parar y, consecuentemente, los nuevos estándares han incorporado tecnologías de acceso de radio cada vez más eficientes. Las especificaciones IMT-Advanced para la cuarta generación (4G) de redes móviles de banda ancha requieren, entre otras cosas, tasas más altas de transmisión de datos, del orden de 100 Mbps a 1 Gbps, dependiendo del nivel de movilidad. Para conseguir éstas tasas se ha escogido como tecnología de acceso el Acceso Múltiple por División de Frecuencias Ortogonal (OFDMA), y se han considerado femtoceldas para mejorar la cobertura de espacios interiores. Para explorar completamente la flexibilidad de estas tecnologías y utilizar los escasos recursos radio de la manera más eficiente posible se requieren técnicas de Gestión de Recursos Radio (RRM) adaptativas e inteligentes. En el ámbito de los sistemas celulares basados en OFDMA, uno de los problemas todavía no resuelto es el compromiso que existe entre la eficiencia en la utilización de los recursos y la equidad en su distribución entre los usuarios de la red. El compromiso entre eficiencia y equidad aparece cuando los recursos radio asignados dan lugar a diferentes indicadores de eficiencia con respecto a los distintos usuarios de red (diversidad multi-usuario). El uso de una asignación de recursos oportunista, para explorar estas diversidades y maximizar la capacidad, causa situaciones de desigualdad en la distribución de los recursos. Por otro lado, los esquemas de RRM que propician equidad absoluta consideran un escenario de peor caso, penalizando a los usuarios con mejores condiciones y reduciendo la capacidad del sistema. En esta tesis, se han propuesto varias políticas y técnicas de RRM para balancear este compromiso en el contexto de redes macrocelulares y femtocelulares. En el caso particular de sistemas macrocelulares, proponemos un nuevo paradigma de gestión de red basado en el control del índice de equidad de la celda en escenarios con servicios de tiempo no-real y de tiempo real. Se han estudiado dos enfoques para el control de la equidad: control instantáneo (a corto plazo) utilizando técnicas de RRM de adaptación de tasa y equidad, y control promediado (a mediano plazo) utilizando estructuras de RRM basadas en la Teoría de la Utilidad. En el caso de las femtoceldas, se ha formulado una nueva técnica para evitar la interferencia capaz de balancear el compromiso entre eficiencia espectral y la equidad entre los puntos de acceso de las femtoceldas. Esta estrategia de RRM se basa en una planificación a mediano/largo plazo de las frecuencias disponibles, que toma en consideración la topología de interferencia de grupos de femtoceldas vecinas. Las técnicas de RRM consideradas en esta tesis se han evaluada utilizando de forma sistemática técnicas de simulación numéricas a nivel de sistema. En el caso del escenario macrocelular, se demuestra que las técnicas adaptativas de RRM propuestas son, para los operadores móviles una, herramienta valiosa porqué, además de ser una generalización de estrategias clásicas bien conocidas, son capaces de garantizar de forma eficiente diferentes niveles de equidad en el sistema, y controlar el compromiso entre eficiencia y equidad. Además, se concluye que las estrategias basadas en la teoría de utilidad, que hacen un control promedio de la equidad, muestran resultados tan buenos ó incluso mejores que los presentados por las técnicas basadas en optimización instantánea de la adaptación de la tasa y la equidad, utilizando menores recursos computacionales. Finalmente, se demuestra que la técnica propuesta para evitar interferencia en redes de femtoceldas puede garantizar una coexistencia sin degradaciones entre punto de acceso vecinos para cualquier topología de interferencia. Esta técnica puede ser implementada mediante arquitecturas de red distribuidas ó centralizadas, presentando en ambos casos unos requisitos de señalización muy bajos. / User and cellular operator requirements and expectations have been continuously evolving, and consequently, advanced radio access technologies have emerged. The International Mobile Telecommunications - Advanced (IMT-Advanced) specifications for mobile broadband Fourth Generation (4G) networks state, among other requirements, that enhanced peak data rates of 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps for high and low mobility should be provided. In order to achieve this challenging performance, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) has been chosen as the access technology, and femtocells have been considered for improving indoor coverage. In order to fully explore the flexibility of these technologies and use the scarce radio resources in the most efficient way possible, intelligent and adaptive Radio Resource Management (RRM) techniques are crucial. There are many open RRM problems in wireless networks in general and OFDMA-based cellular systems in particular. One of such problems is the fundamental trade-off that exists between efficiency in the resource usage and fairness in the resource distribution among network players. Several opportunistic RRM algorithms, which dynamically allocate the resources to the network players that present the highest efficiency indicator with regard to these resources, have been proposed to maximize the efficiency in the resource usage. The trade-off between efficiency and fairness appears when the resources have different efficiency indicators to different network players (multi-user or multi-cell diversity). The use of opportunistic resource allocation to explore these diversities causes unfair situations in the resource distribution. On the other hand, schemes that provide absolute fairness deal with the worst case scenario, penalizing players with better condition and reducing the system capacity. In this thesis, several RRM policies and techniques are proposed to balance this compromise in macrocell and femtocell networks. In the particular case of macrocell systems, we propound a new network management paradigm based on the control of a cell fairness index in scenarios with Non-Real Time (NRT) or Real Time (RT) services. Two fairness control approaches are studied: instantaneous (short-term) control by means of generalized fairness/rate adaptive RRM techniques and average (mid-term) control using utility-based frameworks. For femtocell networks, a novel interference avoidance technique able to balance the trade-off between spectral efficiency in the femtocell tier and fairness among the Femtocell Access Points (FAPs) is formulated. This RRM strategy is based on a high-level, mid/long-term frequency planning that takes into account the topology of groups of neighboring FAPs. The RRM techniques considered in this thesis are evaluated by means of extensive system-level and/or numerical simulations. Regarding the macrocell scenario, it is shown that the proposed adaptive RRM techniques are valuable tools for the mobile operators, because they are generalizations of well-known classic strategies found in the literature and they can effectively guarantee different fairness levels in the system and control the trade-off between efficiency and fairness. Furthermore, it is concluded that the utility-based strategies that perform an average fairness control can provide performance results as good as the fairness/rate adaptive techniques, which are based on instantaneous optimization, using less computational resources. Finally, it is demonstrated that the proposed interference avoidance technique for femtocell networks can guarantee a seamless coexistence between neighboring FAPs in any interference topology. Furthermore, this technique can be implemented in both centralized and distributed network architectures and generates very low signaling overhead.

La interfaz radio de los sistemas de comunicaciones móviles es normalmente considerada como la única limitación de capacidad en la red de acceso radio. Sin embargo, a medida que se van desplegando nuevas y más eficientes interfaces radio, y de que el tráfico de datos y multimedia va en aumento, existe la creciente preocupación de que la infraestructura de transporte (backhaul) de la red celular pueda convertirse en el cuello de botella en algunos escenarios. En este contexto, la tesis se centra en el desarrollo de técnicas de gestión de recursos que consideran de manera conjunta la gestión de recursos en la interfaz radio y el backhaul. Esto conduce a un nuevo paradigma donde los recursos del backhaul se consideran no sólo en la etapa de dimensionamiento, sino que además son incluidos en la problemática de gestión de recursos. Sobre esta base, el primer objetivo de la tesis consiste en evaluar los requerimientos de capacidad en las redes de acceso radio que usan IP como tecnología de transporte, de acuerdo a las recientes tendencias de la arquitectura de red. En particular, se analiza el impacto que tiene una solución de transporte basada en IP sobre la capacidad de transporte necesaria para satisfacer los requisitos de calidad de servicio en la red de acceso. La evaluación se realiza en el contexto de la red de acceso radio de UMTS, donde se proporciona una caracterización detallada de la interfaz Iub. El análisis de requerimientos de capacidad se lleva a cabo para dos diferentes escenarios: canales dedicados y canales de alta velocidad. Posteriormente, con el objetivo de aprovechar totalmente los recursos disponibles en el acceso radio y el backhaul, esta tesis propone un marco de gestión conjunta de recursos donde la idea principal consiste en incorporar las métricas de la red de transporte dentro del problema de gestión de recursos. A fin de evaluar los beneficios del marco de gestión de recursos propuesto, esta tesis se centra en la evaluación del problema de asignación de base, como estrategia para distribuir el tráfico entre las estaciones base en función de los niveles de carga tanto en la interfaz radio como en el backhaul. Este problema se analiza inicialmente considerando una red de acceso radio genérica, mediante la definición de un modelo analítico basado en cadenas de Markov. Dicho modelo permite calcular la ganancia de capacidad que puede alcanzar la estrategia de asignación de base propuesta. Posteriormente, el análisis de la estrategia propuesta se extiende considerando tecnologías específicas de acceso radio. En particular, en el contexto de redes WCDMA se desarrolla un algoritmo de asignación de base basado en simulatedannealing cuyo objetivo es maximizar una función de utilidad que refleja el grado de satisfacción de las asignaciones respecto los recursos radio y transporte. Finalmente, esta tesis aborda el diseño y evaluación de un algoritmo de asignación de base para los futuros sistemas de banda ancha basados en OFDMA. En este caso, el problema de asignación de base se modela como un problema de optimización mediante el uso de un marco de funciones de utilidad y funciones de coste de recursos. El problema planteado, que considera que existen restricciones de recursos tanto en la interfaz radio como en el backhaul, es mapeado a un problema de optimización conocido como Multiple-Choice Multidimensional Knapsack Problem (MMKP). Posteriormente, se desarrolla un algoritmo de asignación de base heurístico, el cual es evaluado y comparado con esquemas de asignación basados exclusivamente en criterios radio. El algoritmo concebido se basa en el uso de los multiplicadores de Lagrange y está diseñado para aprovechar de manera simultánea el balanceo de carga en la intefaz radio y el backhaul.

A novel radio resource management (RRM) scheme, which jointly considers the system characteristics from the physical, link and network layers, is proposed for cellular code division multiple access (CDMA) systems. Specifically, the power distribution at the physical layer distributes only the necessary amount of power to each connection in order to achieve its required signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). The rate allocation guarantees the required delay/jitter for real-time traffic and the minimum transmission rate requirement for non-real-time traffic. Efficient rate allocation is achieved by making use of the randomness and burstiness of the packet generation process. At the link layer, a packet scheduling scheme is developed based on the information of power distribution and rate allocation from the physical layer to achieve guaranteed quality of service (QoS). It schedules the system resource on a time slot basis to efficiently utilize the system resource in every time slot and to improve the packet throughput for non-real-time traffic. A connection admission control (CAC) scheme based on the lower layer resource allocation information is proposed at the network layer. The CAC scheme also makes use of user mobility information to reduce handoff connection dropping probability (HCDP). Theoretical analysis of the grade of service (GOS) performance, in terms of new connection blocking probability (NCBP), HCDP, and resource utilization, is given. Numerical results show that the proposed RRM scheme can achieve both effective QoS guarantee and efficient resource utilization.

A novel radio resource management (RRM) scheme, which jointly considers the system characteristics from the physical, link and network layers, is proposed for cellular code division multiple access (CDMA) systems. Specifically, the power distribution at the physical layer distributes only the necessary amount of power to each connection in order to achieve its required signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). The rate allocation guarantees the required delay/jitter for real-time traffic and the minimum transmission rate requirement for non-real-time traffic. Efficient rate allocation is achieved by making use of the randomness and burstiness of the packet generation process. At the link layer, a packet scheduling scheme is developed based on the information of power distribution and rate allocation from the physical layer to achieve guaranteed quality of service (QoS). It schedules the system resource on a time slot basis to efficiently utilize the system resource in every time slot and to improve the packet throughput for non-real-time traffic. A connection admission control (CAC) scheme based on the lower layer resource allocation information is proposed at the network layer. The CAC scheme also makes use of user mobility information to reduce handoff connection dropping probability (HCDP). Theoretical analysis of the grade of service (GOS) performance, in terms of new connection blocking probability (NCBP), HCDP, and resource utilization, is given. Numerical results show that the proposed RRM scheme can achieve both effective QoS guarantee and efficient resource utilization.

<p>In this thesis, we investigate several radio resourcemanagement (RRM) techniques and concepts in an indoorenvironment with a dense infrastructure. Future wireless indoorcommunication networks will very likely be implemented atplaces where the user concentration is very high. At these hotspots, the radio resources must be used efficiently. The goalis to identify efficient RRM techniques and concepts that aresuitable for implementation in an indoor environment.</p><p>Handling the high level of co-channel interference is shownto be of paramount importance. Several investigations in thethesis point this out to be the key problem in an indoorenvironment with a dense infrastructure. We show that a locallycentralized radio resource management concept, the bunchconcept, can give a very high performance compared to othercommonly used RRM concepts. Comparisons are made withdistributed systems and systems using channel selection schemeslike CSMA/CA. The comparisons are primarily made by capacityand throughput analysis which are made by system levelsimulations. Results show that the centralized concept can give85 percent higher capacity and 70 percent higher throughputthan any of the compared systems.</p><p>We investigate several RRM techniques to deal with thechannel interference problem and show that beamforming cangreatly reduce the interference and improve the systemperformance. Beamforming, especially sector antennas, alsoreduce the transmitter powers and the necessary dynamic range.A comparison is made between the use of TD/CDMA and pure TDMAwhich clearly shows the performance benefits of usingorthogonal channels that separates the users and reduces theco-channel interference. Different channel selection strategiesare studied and evaluated along with various methods to improvethe capability of system co-existence.</p><p>We also investigate several practical measures to facilitatesystem implementation. Centralized RRM is suitable forguaranteeing QoS but is often considered too complex. With thestudied centralized concept the computational complexity can bereduced by splitting the coverage area into smaller pieces andcover them with one centralized system each. This reduces thecomplexity at the prize of lost capacity due to theuncontrolled interference that the different systems produce.Our investigations show that sector antennas can be used toregain this capacity loss while maintaining high reduction incomplexity. Without capacity loss, the computational complexitycan be reduced by a factor of 40 with sectoring. Theimplementation aspects also include installation sensitivity ofthe indoor architecture and the effect of measurement errors inthe link gains. The robustness against installation errors ishigh but the bunch concept is quite sensitive to largemeasurement errors in the studied indoor environment. Thiseffect can be reduced by additional SIR-margins of the radiolinks.</p><p>The studied bunch concept is shown to be promising for usein future wireless indoor communication systems. It provideshigh performance and is feasible to implement.</p><p><b>Keywords:</b>Radio resource management, indoorcommunication, the bunch concept, centralized RRM, dynamicchannel allocation, channel selection, co-channel interference,power control, feasibility check, capacity, throughput, qualityof service, beamforming, downtilting, sector antennas,co-existence, computational complexity, sensitivity analysis,measurement errors, infrastructure, system implementation,WLAN, HiperLAN/2, IEEE 802.11.</p>

La transmisión asistida por relay o transmisión cooperativa es una nueva técnica de diversidad espacial donde aparece un elemento nuevo (un relay o un usuario cooperativo) en la tradicional transmisión punto a punto (fuente a destino). Ahora en la comunicación intervienen tres enlaces: fuente-relay, relay-destino y fuente-destino. El relay, además de asistir a la fuente en la transmisión de un mensaje, permite combatir las degradaciones que puede sufrir el canal como el shadowing y el pathloss. Aunque esta técnica está basada en el trabajo realizado en los 70 por Van der Meulen, Cover y El Gamal, ha sido en los últimos años cuando se han vuelto a considerar el uso de relays. En realidad, la transmisión asistida por un relay puede verse como un sistema virtual multi-antena (virtual MIMO) donde las antenas están distribuidas en diferentes terminales. Sin embargo, al contrario de los sistemas multi-antena y debido a la limitación de la actual tecnología radio, el relay debe trabajar en modo half-duplex, ya que no puede transmitir y recibir simultáneamente en la misma banda. Este hecho, motiva que la transmisión deba realizarse en dos fases ortogonales en función del modo del relay (recibiendo datos - relay-receive phase o transmitiendo datos - relay-transmit phase). Estas fases pueden implementarse en el dominio de la frecuencia o el tiempo.Esta tesis investiga protocolos y estrategias para la transmisión asistida por relay para mejorar la eficiencia espectral y homogeneizar el servicio para todos los usuarios en un sistema de comunicación celular. La introducción del relay en la comunicación implica la redefinición de muchas técnicas y protocolos considerados en las comunicaciones punto a punto y en los sistemas multi-antena, situados en la capa física y/o superiores.En primer lugar se presentan los achievable rates obtenidos por la transmisión asistida por relay en función del rol del relay (amplifica y retransmite o decodifica y retransmite), el tipo de transmisión (siempre transmite, incremental o selectiva), los datos transmitidos por el relay (repite los símbolos recibidos o son independientes) y el tipo del protocolo half duplex. En función de los terminales activos en cada fase de la comunicación (fuente, destino o relay), existen hasta cuatro protocolos. Otro aspecto considerado es la asignación de recursos (resource allocation) para cada fase de la comunicación, la cual puede estar fijada de antemano o puede ser ajustada dinámicamente en función de los canales de los diferentes enlaces. En el caso de que todos los coeficientes del canal se conocieran perfectamente, los terminales podrían transmitir síncronamente, mejorando la comunicación gracias a la ganancia debida a técnicas de pre-codificación por medio de los autovectores del canal (con antenas distribuidas).Además dos técnicas de transmisión asistida por relay son evaluadas cuando existen múltiples relays por destino. Ambas dependen del tipo de mensajes transmitidos a cada relay (mensajes independientes o uno común). La asignación de recursos para ambas técnicas puede verse como un problema convexo.Tres escenarios resumen diferentes tipos de transmisión asistida por relay para múltiples fuentes y un solo destino: RMAC (Relay-assisted Multiple Access Channel), UC (User Cooperation) and MARC (Multiple Access Relay Channel). Su diferencia se basa en el tipo de relay half- duplex considerado. La transmisión puede hacerse síncrona o asíncronamente. Las fuentes y los relays están limitados en potencia y el acceso de ellos en cada fase de la comunicación pude hacerse por medio de TDMA (time division multiple access), FDMA (frequency division multiple access) or SC (superposition coding multiple access). La asignación de recursos puede ser formulada como un problema convexo en algunos casos y la solución óptima puede ser encontrada. Seguidamente la transmisión asistida por relay y duplexada en tiempo es aplicada a un sistema celular centralizado basado en TDMA en el downlink. Con el objetivo de mejorar la eficiencia espectral se propone el reuso espacial de un slot temporal para las transmisiones de los relays hacia sus respectivos destinos (slot de relay), generando interferencia para todos los restantes destinos activos. Un algoritmo de control de potencia basado en la teoría de juegos es propuesto para combatir la interferencia generada. Bajo esa configuración, un algoritmo de scheduling investiga las posibles ganancias debidas al multi-user gain y mide el overhead introducido.Otra forma de tratar con la interferencia es la de controlar el rate de nuestra transmisión (rate control management). Bajo ciertas condiciones es posible modelar la función de densidad de probabilidad de la potencia interferente. En ese caso, la fuente ajusta el rate para maximizar el throughput de la comunicación. Esta solución es extendida para el caso en el que cada destino es asistido por varios relays. Las dos soluciones propuestas son capaces de proporcionar mejores resultados que la transmisión directa, a pesar de la interferencia existente en el slot de relay. Finalmente, se investiga el control dinámico del enlace para la transmisión asistida por relay con dos diferentes tipos de conocimiento sobre el canal: conocimiento estadístico (statistical knowledge of the channel state) o conocimiento del canal instantáneo (actual information about the current channel state).Estos dos tipos de conocimiento derivan en diferentes estrategias a utilizar para seleccionar la modulación y el esquema de codificación (MCS). En el primer caso, los rates seleccionados no están adaptados al canal actual, por lo que el destino puede recibir erróneamente los mensajes. Los protocolos de retransmisión de mensajes (ARQ - automatic repeat request) son los encargados de asegurarse la correcta recepción y son redefinidos para la transmisión asistida por relay.. En este trabajo, se especifica los códigos espacio-tiempo distribuidos, la codificación en al fuente y el relay y la longitud de las retransmisiones. Cuando la fuente conoce algún parámetro del canal instantáneo puede adaptar el MCS para esa realización del canal. En ese caso se investiga la predicción del error en las transmisiones asistidas por relay, y con ello es posible diseñar el MCS para que maximice la cantidad de información transmitida para una probabilidad de pérdida de paquete o que maximice el throughput. / The relay-assisted or cooperative transmission is a relatively new class of spatial diversity technique where a new element comes up in the conventional source-destination or point-to point communication: an assisting relay or cooperating user. The relay assists to the source in transmitting a message to the destination and allows dealing with the channel impairments like shadowing and pathloss. Although the seminal works were issued in the 70's by van der Meulen, Cover and El Gamal, it has been during the last years when it has re-gained more attention by the researchers. In fact, the relay-assisted transmission can be seen as a virtual MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) with distributed antennas. In contrast to MIMO systems, the transmission requires the use of additional channel resources because of the limitation of the current radio technology: the relay terminal is constrained to work in half-duplex mode, which motivates that the transmission must be carried out in two orthogonal phases (relay-receive and relay-transmit phase), duplexed in time or frequency domains.This dissertation investigates protocols and strategies for the relay-assisted transmission which improve the spectral efficiency and homogenize service in the cellular communication systems. The new element present in the communication, the relay terminal, imposes a redefinition of many techniques and protocols commonly used in the point-to-point and MIMO systems, which are placed at the physical and upper layers.First, achievable rates using the relay-assisted transmission are provided which depend on the role of the relay (amplify-and-forward or decode-and-forward), the type of the transmission (persistent transmission, incremental or selective relaying), the data transmitted by the relays (repetition or unconstrained coding) and the type of half-duplex protocol. There are up to four protocol definition depending on the activity of the terminals on each phase. An additional aspect addressed is the resource allocation for each phase, that is, either it is fixed beforehand (static) or it is adjusted dynamically (dynamic) as a function of the channel quality. For the single-user relay- assisted transmission the resources can be allocated based on the channel quality of the different links. Moreover, if there is complete channel state information about all channel coefficients, source and relay can transmit synchronously enhancing the transmission thanks to the (distributed) eigenvector precoding techniques.Two relay-assisted transmission techniques are evaluated when a destination is assisted by multiple relays. Both depend on the messages intended to each assisting relay (independent or common messaging). The resource allocation for both techniques is shown to be convex. Additionally, three different scenarios illustrate the multi-user relay-assisted transmission with a single destination and different types of half-duplex relays: RMAC (Relay-assisted Multiple Access Channel), UC (User Cooperation) and MARC (Multiple Access Relay Channel). The relay-assisted transmission can be done synchronously or asynchronously. The sources and relays are power limited and access in each phase of the communication by TDMA (time division multiple access), FDMA (frequency division multiple access) or SC (superposition coding multiple access). For those scenarios the allocation of transmitted power and time resources can be formulated as a convex problem under some circumstances, evaluating the optimal solution.Afterwards, the relay-assisted transmission duplexed in time is applied to a centralized cellular system based on TDMA in the downlink. The reuse of one time slot for the transmissions done from the relays to destinations (relay slot) is proposed to improve the spectral efficiency. This solution produces interference for all the destinations active in that time slot. A power control algorithm (at the relays) based on game theory is proposed to combat the generated interference. Under that configuration a scheduler algorithm explores the multi-user gain for the relay-assisted transmission, measuring the introduced overhead.Another way of dealing with the interference is by rate control management. Under some circumstances it is possible to model the probability density function (pdf) of the interfering power. In such a case, the source can tune the transmission rate in order to maximize the throughput. This solution is extended to the case where each destination is assisted by multiple relays. In spite of the interfering power, both proposed solutions are able to provide significant gains over the direct transmission.Finally, the dynamic link control of the relay assisted transmission is investigated under two different assumptions on the knowledge about the channel: statistical knowledge of the channel state and actual information about the current channel state. Both types of knowledge lead to different transmission strategies, in terms of selecting the modulation and coding scheme (MCS). Under the first case, the transmission rates are not adapted to the current channel realization and the destination can decode wrongly the messages. The Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) protocols are redefined for the relayassisted transmission to cope with these events. In this work we specify the (distributed) space-time codes, the coding at the source and relay and the length of the retransmissions. When there is actual information about the channel state the MCS can be adapted to the current channel realization. In such a case, the link error prediction for the relay-assisted transmission is investigated, and thus the MCS can be designed for maximizing the information rate for a given probability of packet loss or maximizing the throughput.

With the traditional static spectrum management, a significant portion of the licensed spectrum is underutilized in most of time while the unlicensed spectrum is over-crowded due to the growing demand for wireless radio spectrum from exponential growth of various wireless devices. Dynamic Spectrum Access utilizes the wireless spectrum in a more intelligent and flexible way. Cognitive radios are a promising enabler for Dynamic Spectrum Access because they can sense and access the idle channels. With cognitive radios, the unlicensed users (SUs) can opportunistically identify and access the vacant portions of the spectrum of the licensed users (PUs). In cognitive radio networks (CRNs), multiple idle channels may be available to SUs. If two or more SUs want to communicate with each other, they must select a channel which is available to all of them. The process of two or more SUs to meet and establish a link on a commonly-available channel is known as rendezvous. 1) Multiple Radios for Fast Rendezvous in CRNs: The existing works on rendezvous implicitly assume that each cognitive user is equipped with one radio (i.e., one wireless transceiver). As the cost of wireless transceivers is dropping, this feature can be exploited to significantly improve the rendezvous performance at low cost. We investigate the rendezvous problem in CRNs where cognitive users are equipped with multiple radios and different users may have different numbers of radios. We first study how the existing rendezvous algorithms can be generalized to use multiple radios for faster rendezvous. We then propose a new rendezvous algorithm, called role-based parallel sequence (RPS), which specifically exploits multiple radios for more efficient rendezvous. Our basic idea is to let the cognitive users stay in a specific channel in one dedicated radio and hop on the available channels with parallel sequences in the remaining general radios. We prove that RPS provides guaranteed rendezvous (i.e., rendezvous can be completed within a finite time) and derive the upper bounds on the maximum time-to-rendezvous (TTR) and the expected TTR. The simulation results show that i) multiple radios can cost-effectively improve the rendezvous performance, and ii) the proposed RPS algorithm performs better than the ones generalized from the existing algorithms. 2) Efficient Channel-Hopping Rendezvous Algorithm Based on Available Channel Set: All the existing rendezvous algorithms that provide guaranteed rendezvous (i.e., rendezvous can be achieved within finite time) generate channel-hopping (CH) sequences based on the whole channel set. However, some channels may be unavailable (e.g., being used by the licensed users) and these existing algorithms would randomly replace the unavailable channels by the available ones in the CH sequence. This random replacement is not effective, especially when the number of unavailable channels is large. We design a new rendezvous algorithm, called Interleaved Sequences based on Available Channel set (ISAC), that attempts rendezvous on the available channels only for faster rendezvous. ISAC constructs an odd subsequence and an even subsequence and interleaves these two subsequences to compose a CH sequence. We prove that ISAC provides guaranteed rendezvous. We derive the upper bounds on the maximum time-to-rendezvous to be O(

Abstract Spectrum sharing has become a high priority research area over the past few years. The motivation behind this lies in the fact that the limited spectrum is currently inefficiently utilized. As recognized by the World radio communication conference (WRC)-07, the amount of identified spectrum is not large enough to support large bandwidths for a substantial number of operators. Therefore, it is paramount for future mobile cellular systems to share the frequency spectrum and coexist in a more efficient manner. The present dissertation deals with the problem of spectrum scarcity by examining spectrum sharing paradigms where a migration from fixed to flexible resource allocation is investigated. First, a radio resource management (RRM) architecture is proposed where advanced spectrum functionalities accounting for the short-term variations of the spectrum are examined. The achievable gains are shown in a multi-cell, multi-network environment with realistic traffic patterns from a European operator, enhancing thereby spectrum utilization. Second, inter-operator resource sharing in a broadband network is considered where a packet-based cellular network is developed. It is shown that the obtained gains in terms of quality-of-service (QoS), number of operators and different data rates requirements improve the overall efficiency of the network. Besides and in order to cope with the stringent data rate requirements, direct terminal-to-terminal (T2T) communication is examined in which a realistic algorithm is proposed advocating resource reuse in a cellular system with simultaneous communications between mobiles. Numerical results confirm the advantages of resource reuse in terms of throughput, average frame delays and power consumption. In this thesis, a proposal is made as how to enhance spectrum sharing. The concept of hierarchy is proposed in which wireless competitive operators share the same spectrum band. The decentralized hierarchical approach is shown to bridge the gap between the selfish and centralized approach. Interference avoidance is studied for point-to-point communication in a selforganized network where different optimal power allocation strategies are examined along with the impact of frequency reuse on the ergodic capacity of the network.