We consider a single-cell massive multiple input multiple output full-duplex wireless communication system, where the base-station (BS) is equipped with a large number of antennas. We consider the setup where the single-antenna mobile users operate in half-duplex, while each antenna at the BS is capable of full-duplex transmissions, i.e., it can transmit and receive simultaneously using the same frequency spectrum. The fundamental challenge in this system is intra-cell inter-node interference, generated by the transmissions of uplink users to the receptions at the downlink users. The key operational challenge is estimating and aggregating inter-mobile channel estimates, which can potentially overwhelm any gains from full-duplex operation. In this paper, we propose a scalable and distributed scheme to optimally manage the inter-node interference by utilizing a “one-hop information architecture”. In this architecture, the BS only needs to know the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio from the downlink users. Each uplink user needs its own SINR, along with a weighted signal-plus-noise metric from its one-hop neighboring downlink users, which are the downlink users, that it interferes with. The proposed one-hop information architecture does not require any network devices to comprehensively gather the vast inter-node interference channel knowledge, and hence significantly reduces the overhead. Based on the one-hop information architecture, we design a distributed power control algorithm and implement such architecture using overheard feedback information. We show that, in typical asymptotic regimes with many users and antennas, the proposed distributed power control scheme improves the overall network utility and reduces the transmission power of the uplink users.

We investigate the downlink scheduling problem under Markovian ON/OFF fading channels, where the instantaneous channel state information is not directly accessible, but is revealed via ARQ-type feedback. The scheduler can exploit the temporal correlation/channel memory inherent in the Markovian channels to improve network performance. However, designing low-complexity and throughput-optimal algorithms under temporal correlation is a challenging problem. In this paper, we find that under an average number of transmissions constraint, a low-complexity index policy is throughput-optimal. The policy uses Whittle's index value, which was previously used to capture opportunistic scheduling under temporally correlated channels. Our results build on the interesting finding that, under the intricate queue length and channel memory evolutions, the importance of scheduling a user is captured by a simple multiplication of its queue length and Whittle's index value. The proposed queue-based index policy has provably low complexity. Numerical results show that significant throughput gains can be realized by exploiting the channel memory using the proposed low-complexity policy.

We consider the scheduling problem in downlink wireless networks with heterogeneous, Markov-modulated, on/off channels. It is well known that the performance of scheduling over fading channels relies heavily on the accuracy of the available channel state information (CSI), which is costly to acquire. Thus, we consider the CSI acquisition via a practical ARQ-based feedback mechanism whereby channel states are revealed at the end of only scheduled users' transmissions. In the assumed presence of temporally correlated channel evolutions, the desired scheduler must optimally balance the exploitation-exploration tradeoff, whereby it schedules transmissions both to exploit those channels with up-to-date CSI and to explore the current state of those with outdated CSI. In earlier works, Whittle's Index Policy had been suggested as a low-complexity and high-performance solution to this problem. However, analyzing its performance in the typical scenario of statistically heterogeneous channel state processes has remained elusive and challenging, mainly because of the highly coupled and complex dynamics it possesses. In this work, we overcome these difficulties to rigorously establish the asymptotic optimality properties of Whittle's Index Policy in the limiting regime of many users. More specifically: 1) we prove the local optimality of Whittle's Index Policy, provided that the initial state of the system is within a certain neighborhood of a carefully selected state; (2) we then establish the global optimality of Whittle's Index Policy under a recurrence assumption that is verified numerically for our problem. These results establish that Whittle's Index Policy possesses analytically provable optimality characteristics for scheduling over heterogeneous and temporally correlated channels.

We study opportunistic multiuser scheduling in downlink networks with Markov-modeled outage channels. We consider the scenario that the scheduler does not have full knowledge of the channel state information, but instead estimates the channel state by exploiting the memory inherent in the Markov channels along with Automatic-Repeat-reQues-styled-styled feedback from the scheduled users. Opportunistic scheduling is optimized in two stages: 1) channel estimation and rate adaptation are performed to maximize the short-term throughput, i.e., the successful transmission rate of the scheduled user in the current slot and 2) user scheduling is performed, based on the short-term throughput, to maximize the overall long-term sum-throughput of the downlink. The scheduling problem is a partially observable Markov decision process with the classic exploitation versus exploration tradeoff that is difficult to quantify. We, therefore, study the problem in the framework of restless multiarmed bandit processes, and perform a Whittle's indexability analysis. Whittle's indexability is traditionally known to be hard to establish and the index policy derived based on Whittle's indexability is known to have optimality properties in various settings. We show that the problem of downlink scheduling under imperfect channel state information is Whittle indexable and derive the Whittle's index policy in closed form. Through extensive numerical experiments, we show that the Whittle's index policy has near-optimal performance and is robust against various imperfections in channel state feedback. Our work reveals that, under incomplete channel state information, exploiting channel memory for opportunistic scheduling can result in significant system-level performance gains and that almost all of these gains can be realized using the polynomial-complexity Whittle's index policy.

We consider the scheduling problem in downlink wireless networks with heterogeneous, Markov-modulated, ON/OFF channels. It is well-known that the performance of scheduling over fading channels heavily depends on the accuracy of the available Channel State Information (CSI), which is costly to acquire. Thus, we consider the CSI acquisition via a practical ARQ-based feedback mechanism whereby channel states are revealed at the end of only scheduled users' transmissions. In the assumed presence of temporally-correlated channel evolutions, the desired scheduler must optimally balance the exploitation-exploration trade-off, whereby it schedules transmissions both to exploit those channels with up-to-date CSI and to explore the current state of those with outdated CSI. In earlier works, Whittle's Index Policy had been suggested as a low-complexity and high-performance solution to this problem. However, analyzing its performance in the typical scenario of statistically heterogeneous channel state processes has remained elusive and challenging, mainly because of the highly-coupled and complex dynamics it possesses. In this work, we overcome these difficulties to rigorously establish the asymptotic optimality properties of Whittle's Index Policy in the limiting regime of many users. More specifically: (1) we prove the local optimality of Whittle's Index Policy, provided that the initial state of the system is within a certain neighborhood of a carefully selected state; (2) we then establish the global optimality of Whittle's Index Policy under a recurrence assumption that is verified numerically for the problem at hand. These results establish, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, that Whittle's Index Policy possesses analytically provable optimality characteristics for scheduling over heterogeneous and temporally-correlated channels.

We address the problem of opportunistic multiuser scheduling in downlink networks with Markov-modeled outage channels. We consider the scenario in which the scheduler does not have full knowledge of the channel state information, but instead estimates the channel state information by exploiting the memory inherent in the Markov channels along with ARQ-styled feedback from the scheduled users. Opportunistic scheduling is optimized in two stages: (1) Channel estimation and rate adaptation to maximize the expected immediate rate of the scheduled user; (2) User scheduling, based on the optimized immediate rate, to maximize the overall long term sum-throughput of the downlink. The scheduling problem is a partially observable Markov decision process with the classic `exploitation vs exploration' trade-off that is difficult to quantify. We therefore study the problem in the framework of Restless Multi-armed Bandit Processes (RMBP) and perform a Whittle's indexability analysis. Whittle's indexability is traditionally known to be hard to establish and the index policy derived based on Whittle's indexability is known to have optimality properties in various settings. We show that the problem of downlink scheduling under imperfect channel state information is Whittle indexable and derive the Whittle's index policy in closed form. Via extensive numerical experiments, we show that the index policy has near-optimal performance. Our work reveals that, under incomplete channel state information, exploiting channel memory for opportunistic scheduling can result in significant performance gains and that almost all of these gains can be realized using an easy-to-implement index policy.

In a heterogeneous wireless network, where many different wireless networks interwork together, call admission control is an important issue to distribute user traffic among different access networks in order to provide quality of service (QoS). In this paper, we present and analyze the performance of a call admission control (CAC) policy for voice and data calls, which is based on one-hop cooperation among the mobile nodes, in a cellular-WLAN interworking scenario. For call-level queueing analysis of the CAC scheme, we use a more general phase-type distribution to model the characteristics of the system. Based on the analytical model, we illustrate the effect of one-hop cooperation on call-level QoS performance (e.g., call blocking probability, call dropping probability).