Iterative resource efficient power allocation in small cell network

The major considerations in designing wireless networks are spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). Though it is desirable to enhance both SE and EE, however, a trade-off exists between the two. To deal with this trade-off, a new metric called the resource efficiency (RE) has already been proposed in the literature. With RE as a performance evaluation metric, a balance can be struck between the SE and EE. Resource allocation with RE as an objective has already been proposed in the literature for a conventional cellular network. However, RE for a small cell network (a.k.a. heterogeneous network) has not been investigated yet. Small cells increase the frequency reuse factor, thus significantly enhancing the capacity and coverage of cellular networks. While already being embraced into LTE, the small cell technology will be one of the main features of the 5G cellular networks. In this paper, we investigate the problem of power allocation for a small cell network. An optimization problem is formulated with the objective of maximizing the RE such that maximum power constraint is satisfied. Finally, we propose an iterative heuristic method called the Iterative Resource Efficient Power Allocation (IREPA) algorithm to solve the formulated problem. We compare the performance of the IREPA algorithm with the Gradient Based Optimal Power Adaptation Scheme and the Uniform Power Allocation Scheme. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed power allocation technique that significantly improves the resource efficiency.