On the performance of network-assisted indoor device-to-device communication using location awareness and realistic path loss models

This paper proposes a framework to analyze the viability of network-assisted Device-to-Device (D2D) communication in an indoor propagation environment using location awareness. Based on the past location information of the users a probability model is developed. The model helps to evaluate the probability of a user's location on a specific indoor site at a given time of the day. Further, leveraging this location information, a heterogeneous framework is considered where user devices are capable of supporting cellular, as well as D2D communication. In order to quantify the performance, the proposed D2D+cellular framework is compared with the conventional cellular framework, and the gains are measured in terms of spectral efficiency and amount of energy saved. It is shown, on opting D2D over cellular for indoor communication it is possible to achieve an average spectral efficiency gain of 10.45 bits/s/Hz as well as an average energy saving of 59%. Further, it is also observed that there exists a critical point beyond which D2D ceases to be beneficial over conventional cellular communication.