Power consumption optimization for small-cell networks under QoS constraints

The rise of data traffic is a main trend in today's mobile networks but increases the power consumption as a price. In this paper, we aim to optimize the power consumption of downlink multi-user small-cell networks (SCNs) taking the quality of service (QoS) requirements of all the users into account. First we use semi-definite relaxation technique to transform the power consumption optimization problem into a convex problem, then obtain the optimal solution and insights on the interplay of the design parameters like the number of users, the number of antennas and the QoS value by using toolbox CVX. Simulation results show that our optimization is effective. Moreover, we show that the power consumption can be further reduced by applying antenna selection algorithm when the number of antennas is larger than the number of users per small-cell access point.