Utility-Based Power Allocation for Multiclass Wireless Systems

We study power-allocation problems in wireless systems through a network utility maximization framework. In this framework, the type of utility function represents the characteristics of each service. Hence, to deal with multiclass services in the system, it is important to accommodate various types of utility functions. In this paper, we consider four types of utility functions that can represent most of the services in wireless networks. We first develop a simple algorithm that solves a general optimization problem with those four types of utility function. We show that, even though the proposed algorithm might not provide the optimal solution, it provides an asymptotically optimal solution, which could be a good approximation to the optimal solution. The proposed algorithm can be applied to various resource-allocation problems in wireless systems. Among them, in this paper, we show that the proposed algorithm can be applied to both uplink and downlink power-allocation problems.