Multi-radio Resource Management Research Articles

Fairness Resource Allocation for Parallel Multi-Radio Access in Cognitive Multi-Cell

The secondary users (SUs) in cognitive heterogeneous networks have the capability of utilizing the coexisting multi-radio access (MRA) networks to further improve network capacity as well as user satisfaction. In this paper, we focus on multi-radio resource management for the parallel multi-radio access technology in a cognitive multi-cell, where SUs have different services demands, including real-time (RT) services and best-effort (BE) services. Since the interference introduced to the primary users must be considered carefully in order to forbid their performance degradation, the proposed resource management strategy jointly handles the interference problem and the varied resource constraints caused by MRA networks simultaneously. Additionally, because all the users expect to be allocated a fair amount of resource and gain a same level of QoS, the proportional fairness criterion is introduced and aims at all the SUs. Therefore, the proposed strategy can achieve the fairness between RT SUs and BE SUs when the residual resource is sufficient after satisfying the target rate of the RT SUs. Since the formulated problem is NP-hard, a novel algorithm based on genetic algorithm is addressed to solve it. Finally, extensive simulations are presented to verify the performance improvement of the proposed strategy.

Investigation of Cooperation Technologies in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Heterogeneous wireless networks based on varieties of radio access technologies (RATs) and standards will coexist in the future. In order to exploit this potential multiaccess gain, it is required that different RATs are managed in a cooperative fashion. This paper proposes two advanced functional architecture supporting the functionalities of interworking between WiMAX and 3GPP networks as a specific case: Radio Control Server- (RCS-) and Access Point- (AP-) based centralized architectures. The key technologies supporting the interworking are then investigated, including proposing the Generic Link Layer (GLL) and researching the multiradio resource management (MRRM) mechanisms. This paper elaborates on these topics, and the corresponding solutions are proposed with preliminary results.

Multi-radio infrastructure for 4G

Future multi-radio infrastructure for the fourth generation (4G) will combine existing radio network technologies into a common communication system. For such an infrastructure, we propose a multi-radio management (MRM) that enables optimized access selection and handover control for mobile users and increases the overall efficiency of network resources. This paper presents the MRM concept by its functional architecture, its main and supporting functions, the migration of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) system architecture evolution, and last but not least, results from a demonstrator and simulations. MRM comprises multi-radio resource management (MRRM) and multi-radio mobility management (MRMM), which are tightly coupled to corresponding legacy subsystems through an abstraction and adaptation layer (AAL). In this way, MRM interworks with different radio access technologies (RATs) and extends their legacy functions with multi-radio control and sophisticated management based on generic mechanisms and virtualized interfaces. MRM is scalable due to the distribution of MRM across network nodes, and future RATs can be added seamlessly due to the AAL concept.

Multiradio Resource Management: Parallel Transmission for Higher Throughput?

Mobile communication systems beyond the third generation will see the interconnection of heterogeneous radio access networks (UMTS, WiMax, wireless local area networks, etc.) in order to always provide the best quality of service (QoS) to users with multimode terminals. This scenario poses a number of critical issues, which have to be faced in order to get the best from the integrated access network. In this paper, we will investigate the issue of parallel transmission over multiple radio access technologies (RATs), focusing the attention on the QoS perceived by final users. We will show that the achievement of a real benefit from parallel transmission over multiple RATs is conditioned to the fulfilment of some requirements related to the kind of RATs, the multiradio resource management (MRRM) strategy, and the transport-level protocol behaviour. All these aspects will be carefully considered in our investigation, which will be carried out partly adopting an analytical approach and partly by means of simulations. In this paper, in particular, we will propose a simple but effective MRRM algorithm, whose performance will be investigated in IEEE802.11a-UMTS and IEEE802.11a-IEEE802.16e heterogeneous networks (adopted as case studies).

A Unified Architecture and Key Techniques for Interworking between WiMAX and Beyond 3G/4G Systems

The trend of inter-connection among a multitude of different wireless access networks presents the great and bright potential business opportunities for communication operators. However, such a trend also creates a huge challenge for the network designers to manage the different radio access technologies in a cooperative mode. Therefore, this paper proposes two advanced functional architectures to support the functionalities of interworking between WiMAX and beyond 3G/4G systems, i.e., Radio Control Server (RCS) and Access Point (AP) based centralized architectures. Both control and user planes are defined in these two architectures. This paper further describes the corresponding key techniques for the interworking. These techniques can be partitioned into four categories: the key mechanisms in Generic Link Layer (GLL), the key mechanisms in Multi-Radio Resource Management (MRRM), the end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) provision, and the heterogeneous paging. For the mechanisms in GLL, Multi-radio transmission diversity (MRTD) and Multi-Radio Multi-Hop networking (MRMH) schemes are researched. Meanwhile, Radio Access Technology (RAT) selection and load balancing schemes in aspect of MRRM are presented to improve the performance of interworking. In particular, the heterogeneous paging procedures for the convergence of WiMAX and beyond 3G/4G are proposed and evaluated, which can decrease the transmission load and save the power consumption.