Successive Convex Approximation Method Research Articles

On weighted sum‐rate maximization of full‐duplex systems in presence of STAR‐RIS

AbstractReflecting intelligent surface (RIS) is one of the key enabling technologies for beyond fifth generation wireless networks to further improve coverage, spectral‐ and energy‐efficiency of wireless networks. Recently, a novel simultaneous transmission and reflection RIS (STAR‐RIS) technology is introduced which enables more degrees‐of‐freedom in simultaneously serving users in reflection and transmission regions of RIS. This paper investigates a STAR‐RIS assisted two‐user full‐duplex communication system, wherein multi‐antenna base station (BS) and single‐antenna users are subject to maximum power constraints. Firstly, weighted sum rates are computed for three well‐known STAR‐RIS protocols, e.g. energy splitting, mode selection, and time splitting. Then, for each of the cases, weighted sum rate optimization problem is investigated to find optimal resource allocations, i.e. base station's precoding and combining matrices, coefficients of STAR‐RIS, and power allocations. The optimization problem is transferred into multiple convex sub‐problems using equivalent weighted minimum mean‐square‐error forms. Also, by use of the successive convex approximation method, tunable parameters of the STAR‐RIS are optimized. Although the original problem is a non‐convex one, proposed iterative alternating technique achieves an acceptable sub‐optimal performance. Finally, performance of the system is analysed and compared to some baselines to highlight superiority of the STAR‐RIS compared to the conventional RIS schemes.

Robust Multi-UAV Cooperative Trajectory Planning and Power Control for Reliable Communication in the Presence of Uncertain Jammers

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a promising application for future communication and spectrum awareness due to their favorable features such as low cost, high mobility, and ease of deployment. Nevertheless, the jamming resistance appears to be a new challenge in multi-UAV cooperative communication scenarios. This paper focuses on designing trajectory planning and power allocation for efficient control and reliable communication in a ground control unit (GCU)-controlled UAV network, where the GCU coordinates multi-UAV systems to execute tasks amidst multiple jammers with imperfect location and power information. Specifically, this paper formulates a nonconvex semi-infinite optimization problem to maximize the average worst-case signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) among multiple UAVs by designing robust flight paths and power control strategy under stringent energy and mobility constraints. To efficiently address this issue, this paper proposes a powerful iterative algorithm utilizing the S-procedure and the successive convex approximation (SCA) method. Extensive simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.

Energy efficiency optimization for 6G multi-IRS multi-cell NOMA vehicle-to-infrastructure communication networks

Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRS), software-controlled metasurfaces, have emerged as an upcoming sixth-generation (6G) wireless communication technology. IRS intelligently manipulates and optimizes signal propagation using a large-scale array of intelligent elements, enhancing signal coverage, increasing capacity, mitigating path loss, and combating multipath fading This work provides a new energy-efficiency model for multi-IRS-assisted multi-cell non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) vehicular to infrastructure communication networks. The objective is the joint optimization of the total power budget at the roadside unit (RSU), NOMA power allocation for the user equipment, and designing phase shifts for IRS in each cell to maximize the achievable energy efficiency of the system. Due to non-convexity, the original non-convex problem is first decoupled and transformed using block coordinate descent and successive convex approximation methods. Then, an efficient solution is achieved using Gradient-based and interior-point methods. We also consider two benchmark schemes: (1) NOMA power optimization at RSU with random phase shift design at IRS and (2) orthogonal multiple access power allocation with optimal phase shift design at IRS. Numerical results show the superiority of the proposed solution compared to the benchmark schemes. The proposed solution outperforms the benchmarks, demonstrating a 59.57% and 151.21% improvement over the NOMA and orthogonal schemes, respectively, at pct=2 dBm. Additionally, it shows up to a 10.43% better performance than OMA at 10 IRS elements.

Resource Allocation for UAV-RIS-Assisted NOMA-Based URLLC Systems

This work focuses on maximizing the sum rate of ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) systems by leveraging unmanned aerial vehicle-mounted reconfigurable intelligent surface (UAV-RIS) to provide short packet services for users based on the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) protocol. To optimize the sum rate of system, a joint optimization is performed with respect to the power allocation, UAV position, decoding order, and RIS phase shifts. As the original problem is a non-convex integer optimization problem, it is challenging to obtain the optimal solution. Therefore, approximate solutions are derived using successive convex approximation (SCA), slack variables, and penalty-based methods. The simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed resource allocation algorithm compared with the benchmark algorithm with orthogonal multiple access (OMA) scheme. In addition, this work emphasizes the performance gap between the proposed communication system and the traditional Shannon communication system in terms of throughput and the performance capacity sacrificed to achieve lower latency.

Optimisation of energy efficiency of ambient backscatter communication and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces in non‐orthogonal multiple access downlink

AbstractThe authors study the energy efficiency (EE) of ambient backscatter communication (AmBC) device‐assisted and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS)‐assisted non‐orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) downlinks. The authors establish two optimisation problems based on the two collaborative devices (AmBC devices, RIS) with the objective of maximising the EE of the system, taking into account the requirements of power limitation and rate limitation, etc. and also obtain the solutions of two problems by optimising the relevant performance metrics based on the alternating optimisation algorithm. For the backscatter device (BD)‐aided downlink NOMA network, the problem is first decoupled into three subproblems, where the power allocation optimisation subproblem is solved by using the quadratic transformation method and the subgradient algorithm. The maximum EE is obtained by iterating according to the Dinkelbach's algorithm. For the RIS‐aided downlink NOMA network, the power allocation problem is solved by the same method as above and the phase optimisation problem is solved by the successive convex approximation method. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve convergence after several iterations, and the EE of systems with BD‐assisted and RIS‐assisted have different levels of sensitivity to different influencing factors.

Secure Active Intelligent Reflecting Surface Communication against Colluding Eavesdroppers

An active intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted, secure, multiple-input–single-output communication method is proposed in this paper. In this proposed scheme, a practical and unfavorable propagation environment is considered by assuming that multiple colluding eavesdroppers (Eves) coexist. In this case, we jointly optimize the beamformers of the base station (BS) and the active IRS for the formulated sum secrecy rate (SSR) maximization problem. Because the formulated problem is not convex, we apply the alternating optimization method to optimize the beamformers for maximizing the SSR. Specifically, we use the semi-definite relaxation method to solve the sub-problem of the beamforming vector of the BS, and we use the successive convex approximation method to solve the sub-problem of the power amplification matrix of the active IRS. Based on the solutions obtained using these stated methods, numerical results show that deploying an active IRS is superior compared to the cases of a passive IRS and a non-IRS for improving the physical layer security of wireless communication with multiple colluding Eves under different settings, such as the numbers of users, Eves, reflecting elements, and BS antennas as well as the maximum transmit power budget at the BS.

Low-Resolution Optimization for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Communication Network under a Passive Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface and Active Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface

This paper investigates the optimization of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network serving multiple downlink users equipped with single antennas. The network is enhanced by the deployment of either a passive reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) or an active RIS. The objective is to jointly design the UAV’s trajectory and the low-bit, quantized, RIS-programmable coefficients to maximize the minimum user rate in a multi-user scenario. To address this optimization challenge, an alternating optimization framework is employed, leveraging the successive convex approximation (SCA) method. Specifically, for the UAV trajectory design, the original non-convex optimization problem is reformulated into an equivalent convex problem through the introduction of slack variables and appropriate approximations. On the other hand, for the RIS-programmable coefficient design, an efficient algorithm is developed using a penalty-based approximation approach. To solve the problems with the proposed optimization, high-performance optimization tools such as CVX are utilized, despite their associated high time complexity. To mitigate this complexity, a low-complexity algorithm is specifically tailored for the optimization of passive RIS-programmable reflecting elements. This algorithm relies solely on closed-form expressions to generate improved feasible points, thereby reducing the computational burden while maintaining reasonable performance. Extensive simulations are created to validate the performance of the proposed algorithms. The results demonstrate that the active RIS-based approach outperforms the passive RIS-based approach. Additionally, for the passive RIS-based algorithms, the low-complexity variant achieves a reduced time complexity with a moderate loss in performance.

Pilot and data power optimization problems in multiple Aerial Relay Stations cell‐free communication systems

SummaryA cell‐free (CF) technology and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) acting as aerial relay stations (ARSs) are gradually viewed as viable technologies for usage in sixth‐generation (6G) wireless networks owing to their outstanding advantages, such as large coverage, uniform service quality, huge connections, flexible deployment in all geographical areas, and high line‐of‐sight (LoS) probability. As a result, the combination of the CF model and UAVs is suitable for densely populated urban areas, shopping malls, festivals, and locations with complex geography. Furthermore, the integration of the CF model and UAV communication can improve system quality and is considered an entirely new research direction as there is no comprehensive investigation of this combined model. In this study, we investigate the quality of the multi‐ARS CF communication system, where ARSs are equipped with multiple antennas and stochastic distribution within a specific region to simultaneously serve numerous ground users. We establish a closed‐form formulation for the uplink and downlink throughput of individual users by using the matched filtering method and conjugate beamforming technology, respectively. Moreover, we propose a novel method to optimize the pilot and data transmission power coefficients for improving channel estimation and increasing throughput per user, thereby ensuring a high quality of service. The power optimization method is executed via the successive convex approximation (SCA) method, second‐order cone program (SOCP), and linear program. We evaluate system performance according to the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of user throughput based on various parameters, such as the number of users, the number of ARSs, and the length of pilot sequences. The analytical findings also reveal that the system with the proposed power optimization method is always superior to the system without the proposed method in both uplink and downlink.

Joint optimization for computation offloading and 3C resource allocations over wireless-powered and NOMA-enabled multi-access MEC

Multi-access mobile edge computing (MEC) enables mobile users (MUs) to offload tasks to proximal multiple MEC servers for fast task processing. Since MUs generally have stringent delay requirements and limited energy and MEC servers have finite communication, computation, and caching (3C) resources, the joint co-design and optimization over computation offloading and 3C resource allocation for wireless-powered multi-access MEC systems have been highly demanded, while having not been well studied yet. We consider a wireless-powered multi-access MEC, where multiple energy harvesting (EH) based MUs and multiple base stations (BSs) each equipped with an MEC server coexist. Each MU first harvests energy from nearby MEC servers, and then offloads its sub-tasks to multiple MEC servers concurrently based on non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), so as to reduce data offloading delay. We first formulate a delay minimization problem, by jointly optimizing MUs’ computation offloading, MEC servers’ computation and caching resources allocation, and system communication resources allocation. Then we propose an alternating direction multiplier method (ADMM) based distributed scheme to decompose the formulated optimization problem into several sub-problems, and use the block coordinate descending (BCD) method and the successive convex approximation (SCA) method to transform all sub-problems each corresponding to one MEC server to convex subproblems. Finally, we validate and evaluate our proposed scheme through numerical analyses, which show that our proposed distributed scheme can greatly reduce the min–max delay of all MUs by allowing each MU’s concurrent data offloading to multiple MEC servers using NOMA and by jointly optimizing computation offloading and 3C resource allocations. Also, the delay imposed by our proposed scheme is much smaller than that imposed by the Interior Point method, which shows the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.

Joint trajectory, transmission time and power optimization for multi-UAV data collecting system

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been generally applied in the field of communication due to their small size, flexible mobility, and convenient deployment. As a mobile base station, the UAV node can quickly establish a line-of-sight link with the ground node, thereby improving communication performance. In this paper, we study a multi-UAV assisted data collecting system. Specifically, in the case of limited system energy consumption, UAV flight energy consumption and ground node data transmission energy consumption are considered as an general limitation, and considering the channel interference between nodes, a multi-UAV assisted data collection model is studied. An non-convex problem that maximizes the minimum amount of data collected from ground nodes is further formulated. Since the original optimization problem is non-convex that difficult to solve directly, the problem is first decomposed into four sub-problems, and then the solution of each sub-problem is obtained by using successive convex approximation and block coordinate descent method. Finally, based on the solution of the four subproblems, an iterative algorithm for joint optimization of data transmission planning, transmission power, UAV trajectory and mission time is proposed. Simulation experiments show that the proposed algorithm can obtain more transmission data than the baseline algorithms.

Real-time Model Predictive Contouring Control via Block Successive Convex Approximation

The real-time implementation of model predictive control (MPC) in robotics field is known to be challenging due to the inherent non-convex and nonlinear dynamics involved, as well as the need for a longer prediction horizon for better control performance. This paper presents a real-time model predictive contouring control (MPCC) scheme by utilizing the block successive convex approximation (BSCA) method. By adopting this method, the original computationally intensive non-convex problem can be decomposed into smaller subproblems with explicit solutions. We show the effectiveness and the real-time performance of the proposed method through a wheeled mobile robot path following task using MPCC controller in simulation.

Energy Efficient Resource Allocation for Uplink RIS-Aided Millimeter-Wave Networks With NOMA

In this paper, energy efficiency (EE) is maximized for the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) aided millimeter-Wave (mmWave) networks with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and multiple mobile devices. To this end, we first propose the EE optimization, under the constraints of maximum power, minimal rate of devices and constant modulus of beamforming (BF) vectors. Then, the joint resource allocation scheme of power allocation (PA) and BF is designed. Specifically, given PA, an effective iterative algorithm based on the majorizationminimization, concave-convex procedure and block coordinate descent (BCD) is presented to obtain closed-form solutions of suboptimal passive BF (PBF) and analog BF (ABF) for each iteration. Then, given PBF and ABF, an effective iterative algorithm based on the successive convex approximation, BCD and Dinkelbach methods is derived to achieve suboptimal closedform PA for each iteration. By incorporating these two algorithms into the BCD method, a joint optimization algorithm for EE maximization is presented. As a result, joint resource allocation of PA, PBF and ABF is attained. Besides, the convergence and complexity of the algorithms are analyzed. For comparison, the benchmark scheme based on the multidimensional search method and artificial bee colony algorithm is also presented. Simulation results show that the proposed joint scheme is effective and higher EE can be obtained with lower complexity.

Securing Large-Scale D2D Networks Using Covert Communication and Friendly Jamming

We exploit both covert communication and friendly jamming to propose a friendly jamming-assisted covert communication and use it to doubly secure a large-scale device-to-device (D2D) network against eavesdroppers (i.e., wardens). The D2D transmitters defend against the wardens by: 1) hiding their transmissions with enhanced covert communication, and 2) leveraging friendly jamming to ensure information secrecy even if the D2D transmissions are detected. We model the combat between the wardens and the D2D network (the transmitters and the friendly jammers) as a two-stage Stackelberg game. Therein, the wardens are the followers at the lower stage aiming to minimize their detection errors, and the D2D network is the leader at the upper stage aiming to maximize its utility (in terms of link reliability and communication security) subject to the constraint on communication covertness. We apply stochastic geometry to model the network spatial configuration so as to conduct a system-level study. We develop a bi-level optimization algorithm to search for the equilibrium of the proposed Stackelberg game based on the successive convex approximation (SCA) method and Rosenbrock method. Numerical results reveal interesting insights. We observe that without the assistance from the jammers, it is difficult to achieve covert communication on D2D transmission. Moreover, we illustrate the advantages of the proposed friendly jamming-assisted covert communication by comparing it with the information-theoretical secrecy approach in terms of the secure communication probability and network utility.

Energy‐efficiency optimization and control for electric vehicle platooning with regenerating braking

AbstractIt is a critical problem to improve energy efficiency for electric vehicle platooning systems. Moreover, different from internal combustion engine vehicles, the electric engine has higher efficiency, and further regenerating braking is widely used to recycle part of the energy in the electric vehicle when it is braking. What is more, if vehicles take a formation to drive, they can save more energy. Combining all the favorable factors, this paper presents a two‐layer energy‐efficiency optimization strategy for electric vehicle platooning. The upper layer presents an optimization method to find the optimal velocities and distances between vehicles under different road conditions during the cruise status of the electric vehicle platooning. Due to the nonconvex cost function and considering regenerative braking, the optimization problem is addressed by the dynamic programming method combined with the successive convex approximation method. Further, the lower layer presents a real‐time Model Predictive Control (MPC) strategy, and it directly introduces the battery pack state of charge consumption as the input, which not only finishes the control mission but also consumes minimal energy. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed methods.

Joint Trajectory Design and Resource Allocation for Secure Air–Ground Integrated IoT Networks

We investigate in this paper joint trajectory design and resource allocation for secure air-ground integrated Internet of Things (IoT) networks with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) jamming and device to device (D2D) enhancement. By jointly optimizing ground user scheduling, UAV flight trajectory and transmit power, we are able to maximize the minimum system secrecy rate of UAV and D2D communications. The formulated optimization problems of the two typical network scenarios, i.e., with and without UAV jamming, are challenging to be solved due to the corresponding non-smooth and non-concave objective functions. Therefore, we propose alternating iterative algorithms to solve the problems by employing the successive convex approximation and block coordinate descent methods. Extensive results indicate that the proposed joint optimization schemes can effectively improve the secrecy communication performance under different spatial distributions of ground users.

A UAV-Assisted Secure Communication System by Jointly Optimizing Transmit Power and Trajectory in the Internet of Things

Secure communication technology has attracted more and more attention to improve the security of the Internet of Things (IoT). In this article, we discuss the maximum secrecy capacity problem for a mobile unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted secure communication in IoT, where the UAV relays the covert information from the transmitter (Alice) to the legal receiver (Bob) without detection by an eavesdropper (Eve) though sharing the spectrum with the ground device-to-device (D2D) communications. Our design aims to maximize the sum secrecy capacity Bob received by optimizing the transmit power and the UAV’s trajectory jointly while guaranteeing that the normal communication behavior between ground D2D pairs is not affected. Therefore, we propose a jointly optimizing the transmit power and UAV trajectory algorithm (JOTUTA) based on the block coordinate descent (BCD) method. Specifically, we first transform the non-convex problem of transmit power based on a fixed UAV’s trajectory into a convex problem by D.C. (difference of two convex functions) programming. Secondly, we solve the problem of UAV’s trajectory optimization with given transmit power by the successive convex approximation (SCA) method. Experiments results show the effectiveness of JOTUTA and the advantages of improving the secrecy capacity are verified compared with existing work.

Joint Trajectory Design and Power Allocation for UAV Assisted Network With User Mobility

This paper investigates the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted wireless communications where the UAV acts as the aerial base station to provide downlink data service to the ground users. We consider a typical hot-spot scenario in which the ground users move towards the target points of interests (PoIs) in groups. The UAV can also fly in air to cope with the movement of users. To maximize the system throughput, an optimization problem is formulated to jointly determine the subchannel assignment, the trajectory of UAV and its power allocation per time slot, where the navigation power of UAV, the co-channel interference as well as the quality of service (QoS) requirements of users are taken into account. As the problem is non-convex and hard to solve, we propose a cascade approach. First, we design a user clustering and pairing algorithm to accomplish the subchannel assignment. Then, we apply the block coordinate descent (BCD) based framework to decompose the remaining problem into the power allocation sub-problem and the trajectory design one. The sub-optimal solution can be gradually achieved through alternatively solving these two sub-problems. As for the power allocation sub-problem, we opt to the difference of convex (DC) functions form and the successive convex approximation (SCA) method to solve it. While for the trajectory design sub-problem, the auxiliary variables and SCA method are utilized. Vivid simulation results reveal that the proposed iterative algorithm can well satisfy the QoS of users and achieve significant performance gain compared with other benchmark schemes.

Exploiting NOMA and RIS in Integrated Sensing and Communication

A novel integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system is proposed, where a dual-functional base station is utilized to transmit the superimposed non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) communication signal for serving communication users and sensing targets simultaneously. Furthermore, a new reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided-sensing structure, where a dedicated RIS is deployed to provide virtual line-of-sight (LoS) links for radar targets, is also proposed to address the significant path loss or blockage of LoS links for the sensing task. Based on this setup, the beampattern gain at the RIS for the radar target is derived and adopted as a sensing metric. The objective of this paper is to maximize the minimum beampattern gain by jointly optimizing active beamforming at the base station (BS), power allocation coefficients among NOMA users and passive beamforming at the RIS. To tackle the non-convexity of the formulated optimization problem, the beampattern gain and constraints are first transformed into more tractable forms. Then, an iterative block coordinate descent (IBCD) algorithm is proposed by employing successive convex approximation (SCA), Schur complement, semidefinite relaxation (SDR) and sequential rank-one constraint relaxation (SRCR) methods. To reduce the complexity of the proposed IBCD algorithm, a low-complexity iterative alternating optimization (IAO) algorithm is proposed. Particularly, the active beamforming is optimized by solving a semidefinite programming (SDP) problem and the closed-form solutions of the power allocation coefficients are derived. Numerical results show that: i) the proposed RIS-NOMA-ISAC system always outperforms the RIS-ISAC system without NOMA in beampattern gain and illumination power; ii) the low-complexity IAO algorithm achieves a comparable performance to that achieved by the IBCD algorithm. iii) high beampattern gain can be achieved by the proposed joint optimization algorithms in underloaded and overloaded communication scenarios.

Joint Optimization of Secure Over-the-Air Computation and Reliable Multicasting Assisted by a MIMO Untrusted Two-Way Relay

In this paper, we investigate joint optimization of secure AirComp and reliable multicasting assisted by a multiple-input multiple-output untrusted two-way relay, where artificial noise is employed at the access point (AP) to interfere the relay for ensuring secure AirComp. We aim to minimize the computation distortion at the AP by jointly designing the transmit variables of all the nodes and the aggregation variables at the AP and relay, under the secure AirComp constraint, the reliable multicasting constraint, and the transmit power constraints of all the nodes. We consider two scenarios that perfect and imperfect channel state information (CSI) are available. For the former, the formulated optimization problem is highly nonconvex, and we propose an effective block coordinate descent (BCD)-penalty successive convex approximation (penaltySCA) method to solve the nonconvex problem. For the latter, we model the imperfect CSI by using worst-case criterion and the formulated robust optimization problem is much more challenging than its counterpart with perfect CSI. To solve the robust problem effectively, we first transform it to a deterministic optimization problem by employing some powerful mathematical lemmas, and then apply the proposed BCD-penaltySCA method to solve the reformulated deterministic problem. The proposed methods are shown by simulations to significantly reduce the computation distortion compared with other benchmarks under considering secure AirComp and reliable multicasting.

Sensing-Efficient NOMA-Aided Integrated Sensing and Communication: A Joint Sensing Scheduling and Beamforming Optimization

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system has been expected to play a vital role in future wireless networks and services. In this paper, we investigate a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-aided ISAC system in which the ISAC base station utilizes NOMA to serve multiple NOMA-users while performing radar sensing towards a group of sensing targets by leveraging the superimposed NOMA signals for NOMA-users. To investigate this problem, we formulate a joint optimization of the beamforming, the NOMA transmission duration and the sensing scheduling of sensing targets, with the objective of maximizing the sensing efficiency (i.e., the number of sensed targets within a time-interval) of ISAC system, while satisfying both the communication quality requirement of each NOMA-user and the sensing quality requirement of each selected targets. Despite that the formulated joint optimization problem is strictly non-convex, we propose a decomposition-based algorithm for solving the problem. Specifically, we exploit the successive convex approximation and penalty function method to equivalently transform the problem of optimizing the beamforming into a convex problem which can be addressed efficiently. Furthermore, with the optimal beamforming, we leverage the monotonic feature and adopt a bisection-search method to determine the NOMA transmission duration. Finally, we utilize an algorithm based on the cross-entropy learning to compute the optimal sensing scheduling. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of our proposed algorithms and show the performance advantage of our NOMA-aided ISAC system. Compared with some benchmark schemes, our NOMA-aided ISAC sensing scheduling scheme can achieve better performance in communication and sensing.