Resource Allocation Framework in 5G Multi-Hop Relay System

Cellular relaying architecture is in an early stage for development and deployment. A restricted number of deployment scenarios are addressed in the LTE-A relay standard, though different design options in alternative deployment scenarios do potentially exist. Presently, the LTE-A relay standard is restricted to a single-hop relaying. The principal reason for opting for this architecture is to minimize system complexity. Nonetheless, multi-hop relay architecture could potentially provide greater capacity and coverage, in the future, particularly for urban sparse area deployment scenarios. However, many problems involving the complexity of multi-hop relaying paradigm need to be resolved, specifically resource management. In this paper, we focus on the resource management problem, and we propose a new resource allocation framework to overcome the additional challenges introduced by the multi-hop relay stations. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the validity of the proposed framework.