Power allocation and scheduling for MAC layer design in UWB networks

This paper proposes a practical joint power allocation and scheduling scheme for medium access control (MAC) layer design in ultra-wideband (UWB) networks. The scheme increases system spectral efficiency and reduces power consumption by fully considering the properties of the UWB, such as its capacity in supporting parallel transmission and providing accurate positioning, and its stringent constraint on computational complexity. Practical implementations of the proposed scheme are achieved by introducing a margin based power allocation scheme and an exclusive region based scheduling scheme. The margin based power allocation scheme is carried out based on each link's own information, and is simple to implement, while the exclusive region based scheduling scheme takes into account the interaction among different links. Simulation results show that the proposed power allocation and scheduling schemes exhibit good performance in terms of the average number of slots per frame and the power consumption reduction.