Ph.D. student Antoni Morell successfully completed his Ph.D. dissertation "A Convex Decomposition Perspective on Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation and Applications" advised by Prof. Gonzalo Seco-Granados on September 23rd, 2008.

Abstract:

Traditionally, multiple access schemes in multi-user communications systems have been designed either connection-oriented or traffic-oriented. In the first ones, the goal was to provide as many orthogonal channels as possible, each one serving a different connection. That is the motivation of the so-called FDMA, TDMA and CDMA solutions. On the other hand, random access techniques, which started with the so-called ALOHA protocol, aim to statistically multiplex a shared communication medium by means of exploiting the random and bursty nature of transmission needs in data networks. Most of the multiple access solutions can be interpreted according to that classification or as a combination of those approaches. Notwithstanding, modern systems, such as the digital satellite communications standard DVB-RCS or the broadband wireless access WiMAX, have implemented a multiple access technique where users request for transmission opportunities and receive grants from the network, therefore requiring dynamic bandwidth allocation techniques.

The concept of dynamic bandwidth allocation is wide and involves a number of physical and link layer variables, configurations and protocols. In this Ph.D. dissertation we first explore the mathematical foundation that is required to coordinate the distinct layers of the OSI protocol stack and the distinct nodes within the network. We talk about decomposition techniques focused on the resolution of convex programs, which have elegantly solved many problems in the signal processing and communications fields during the last years. Known schemes are reviewed and a novel decomposition methodology is proposed. Thereafter, we compare the four resulting strategies, each one having its own particular signalling needs, which  results in distinct cross-layer interactions or signalling protocols at implementation level. The results in terms of iterations required to converge are favourable to the proposed method, thus opening a new line of research.

Finally, we contribute with two practical application examples in the DVB-RCS and WiMAX systems. First, we formulate the dynamic bandwidth allocation problem that is derived from the multiple access schemes of both systems. Thereafter,  the resulting Network Utility Maximization (NUM) based problem is solved by means of the previous decomposition mechanisms. The goal is to guarantee fairness among the users at the same time that Quality of Service (QoS) is preserved. In order to achieve that, we choose adequate utility functions that allow to balance the allocation towards the most priority traffic flows under a common fairness framework. We show that in the scenarios considered, the novel proposed coupled-decomposition method reports significant gains since it reduces significantly the iterations required (less iterations implies less signalling) or it reduces the time needed to obtain the optimal allocation when it is centrally computed (more users can be managed). We further show the advantages of cross-layer interactions with the physical and upper layers, which allow to benefit from more favourable adjustments of the transmission parameters and to consider the QoS requirements at upper layers.

In general, an efficient implementation of dynamic bandwidth allocation techniques in Demand Assignment Multiple Access (DAMA) schemes may report significant performance gains but it requires proper coordination among system layers and network nodes, which is attained thanks to decomposition techniques. Each new scenario and system adds another optimization challenge and, as far as we are able to coordinate all the variables in the system towards that optimal point, the highest will be the revenue.