Spectral efficient and fair user pairing for full-duplex communication in cellular networks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on wireless communications Vol. 15; no. 11; pp. 7578 - 7593
• Main Authors: da Silva, Jose Mairton B., Fodor, Gabor, Fischione, Carlo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.11.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Base stations; Cellular communication; cellular communications; cellular networks; channel assignment; Downlinking; Efficiency; Electrical Engineering; Elektro- och systemteknik; frequency assignment; Full-duplex; Gain; Information and Communication Technology; Informations- och kommunikationsteknik; Interference; Interference cancellation; Mixed integer; Power control; Power management; Radio equipment; Resource management; spectral efficient; Uplinking; user pairing; Wireless communication
• ISSN: 1536-1276; 1558-2248; 1558-2248
• DOI: 10.1109/TWC.2016.2604802

A promising new transmission mode in cellular networks is the three-node full-duplex (FD) mode, which involves a base station with FD capability and two half-duplex user transmissions on the same frequency channel for uplink and downlink. The three-node FD mode can increase spectral efficiency, especially in the low transmit power regime, without requiring FD capability at user devices. However, when a large set of users are scheduled in this mode, self-interference at the base station and user-to-user interference can substantially hinder the potential gains of FD communications. This paper investigates the problem of grouping users to pairs and assigning frequency channels to each pair in a spectral efficient and fair manner. Specifically, the joint problem of user uplink/downlink frequency channel pairing and power allocation is formulated as a mixed integer nonlinear problem that is solved by a novel joint fairness assignment maximization algorithm. Realistic system-level simulations indicate that the spectral efficiency of the users having the lowest spectral efficiency is increased by the proposed algorithm, while a high ratio of connected users in different loads and self-interference levels is maintained.