Proximity as a Service for the Use Case of Access Enhancement via Cellular Network-Assisted Mobile Device-to-Device

Guo, Tianhao and Schormans, John and Xu, Lexi and Wu, Jinze and Cao, Yue (2020) Proximity as a Service for the Use Case of Access Enhancement via Cellular Network-Assisted Mobile Device-to-Device. IEEE Access, 8. 31562 - 31573. ISSN 2169-3536

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Abstract

Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is a way to treat the User Equipments (UEs) not as terminals, but as a part of the network (helpers) for service provisioning. We propose a generic framework, namely Proximity as a Service (PaaS), formulate the helper selection problem, and design and prove a heuristic helper selection policy, ContAct based Proximity (CAP), which increases the service connectivity and continuity. Design Of Experiment (DOE) is a statistical methodology that rigorously designs and conducts an experiment, and maximizes the information obtained from that experiment. We apply DOE to explore the relationship (analytic expression) between four inputs (factors) and four metrics (responses). Since different factors have different regression levels, a unified four level full factorial experiment and cubic multiple regression analysis have been carried out. Multiple regression equations are provided to estimate the different contributions and the interactions between factors. Results show that transmission range and user density are dominant and monotonically increasing, but transmission range should be restricted because of interference and energy-efficiency. After obtaining the explicit close form expressions between factors and responses, optimal values of key factors are derived. A methodology (the e-constraint method) to solve the multiple-objective optimization problem has been provided and a Pareto-Optimal set of factors has been found through iteration. The fluctuation of the iterations is small and a specific solution can be chosen based on the particular scenarios (city center or countryside with different user density). The methodology of optimization informs the design rules of the operator, helping to find the optimal networking solution.