Dealing With Link Blockage in mmWave Networks: A Combination of D2D Relaying, Multi-Beam Reflection, and Handover

In this paper, we consider adaptive user equipments (UE) link selection and user association in millimeter-wave (mmWave) networks. We formulate a joint optimization of link selection, resource allocation, and user association, aiming to maximize the sum logarithmic rate of all UEs. The formulated problem is solved by decomposing it into two levels of subproblems. The lower-level subproblem is link selection and resource allocation with a given user association, which is solved by a three-stage process. In the first stage, we establish the D2D relaying architecture by assuming that all UEs are served via D2D relaying. Based on the relaying architecture, we derive the optimal resource allocation in the second stage. Finally, an adaptive link selection algorithm is proposed in the third stage to determine the set of UEs that switch from D2D relaying to multi-beam reflection. The high-level subproblem is user association, for which we solve it with a dual decomposition-based approach. Simulation results indicate that compared to benchmark schemes, the average data rate achieved by the proposed scheme is significantly higher than the benchmark schemes and is close to an upper bound. Besides, the proposed scheme achieves a good tradeoff between system performance and fairness.