Joint optimization of relay strategies and resource allocations in cooperative cellular networks

This paper considers a wireless cooperative cellular data network with a base station and many subscribers in which the subscribers have the ability to relay information for each other to improve the overall network performance. For a wireless network operating in a frequency-selective slow-fading environment, the choices of relay node, relay strategy, and the allocation of power and bandwidth for each user are important design parameters. The design challenge is compounded further by the need to take user traffic demands into consideration. This paper proposes a centralized utility maximization framework for such a network. We show that for a cellular system employing orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA), the optimization of physical-layer transmission strategies can be done efficiently by introducing a set of pricing variables as weighting factors. The proposed solution incorporates both user traffic demands and the physical channel realizations in a cross-layer design that not only allocates power and bandwidth optimally for each user, but also selects the best relay node and best relay strategy (i.e. decode-and-forward vs. amplify-and-forward) for each source-destination pair