Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Energy consumption of wireless networks is dramatically increasing due to the persistent growth of wireless users, devices, applications and the demand of challenging performance. Hence, the convergence of wireless communication systems and green solutions becomes natural and critical. In addition to the environmental benefits, other motivations for having green solutions include economic benefits to the operators (less energy cost) and practical benefits to the users (longer battery usage). Thus, it is now indispensable to shift from pursuing optimal spectral efficiency to efficient energy usage when creating future wireless networks. Besides, it is accepted that emerging technologies of massive multi-antenna systems, dense heterogeneous networks, cloud radio access networks, M2M (machine to machine) communications and energy harvesting communication systems will be part of future wireless networks (5G networks and beyond). The general objective of my research activities is to optimize the energy efficiency of future wireless systems by proposing innovative green solutions and concepts. This objective will be attained through exploring innovative energy-efficient transmission techniques and advanced original energy-efficient resource allocation schemes for the emerging wireless technologies. After an exhaustive literature survey, specific short-term objectives have been defined. Resource allocation will be first tackled through theoretical approaches. Mathematical optimization, game theory, queuing theory and other tools will be used to formulate, solve and find the optimal solutions and performance bounds. Next, less-complex suboptimal and adaptive solutions using heuristic, centralized or distributed approaches will be proposed. Performance evaluation using analytical tools and simulations will be performed. In addition, innovative energy-efficient transmission techniques will be explored. The benefits of this research program touch both fundamental academic knowledge and industrial advances in wireless networks. Hence, it will contribute theoretical and practicalknowledge and will also establish expertise and explore new issues in the energy efficiency of the emerging wireless technologies. In particular, this research will provide algorithmic solutions forenergy-efficient resource allocation and green transmission techniquesfor future wireless networks. These outcomes will give valuable insights and a better understanding of the energy efficiency in wireless systems. They will be of great benefits for the Canadian wireless networks industry and operators. This program will also allow the training of several graduate students to meet the industrial needs for highly qualified people in several emerging areas of wireless networking and strengthen the pioneering position of the Canadian wireless telecommunication industry.