A New Framework for Designing Power-Efficient Resource Allocation under Rate Constraints

In this paper, we discuss resource management in modern wireless communications with the objective of minimizing power consumption, and carry out an analysis of simultaneous transmission and orthogonal transmission schemes in an FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access) framework. Based on a two-link line model with path-loss only, the performance of these two schemes for network power minimization under the specified rate constraints is investigated. It is found that ST (Simultaneous Transmission) consumes less power than OT (Orthogonal Transmission) close to the base station, but much more power in the cell-edge area. This illustrates that the ST/OT selection criterion for sum power minimization is location-dependent. Further, numerical results suggest that the ST/OT selection margins are generally dominated by their network rate constraints rather than the rate proportions between the two links. New definitions of power-utility and fairness metrics are further proposed, following by the design of weighted resource allocation approaches based on efficiency-fairness tradeoffs.