Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Deployment of a multi-tier or a hierarchical cellular structure (also referred to as small cell network [SCN] architecture) will be a key technique to achieve enhanced spectral efficiency, network coverage (and hence reliability), capacity, and energy efficiency in next generation (4G and beyond) cellular wireless networks. Also, provisioning of peer-to-peer communications in this multi-tier architecture (which is also referred to as device-to-device communications [D2Dcom] in the literature) will be a key feature of these networks. The objective of this project is to develop advanced radio resource management and wireless access control methods for successful deployment of multi-tier cellular wireless networks with provisioning for D2Dcom. The specific problems to be addressed include: Interference modeling in multi-tier networks in presence of D2Dcom, distributed resource allocation for small cells, handoff management and admission control in small cells, optimal resource allocation for D2Dcom, joint user association and coordinated beamforming techniques. The scientific approach will be based on sound research principles involving literature survey and analytical modeling combined with extensive numerical analysis and computer simulation.The outcome of the proposed research has the potential of making ground-breaking impact in shaping the broadband cellular wireless industry in the future. It will have direct applications to the evolving next generation cellular wireless systems such as the Third Generation Partnership Project Long Term Evolution Advanced (3GPP LTE-Advanced) and Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 80.16m) systems. As such, the results anticipated from this proposed research will be key strategic enablers for leading players of the Canadian telecommunications industry. Furthermore, training of skilled graduate students and technology transfer to the leading Canadian telecommunications industries is a major strength of our proposal.