Interference constrained device-to-device communications

This paper considers a scenario in which multiple device-to-device (D2D) users can reuse the uplink resources of a cellular network to transmit directly to their corresponding receivers. The aggregated interference from the D2D users is limited by applying a threshold on the allowable interference in the base station. The problem is solved under two types of constraints, namely, the peak interference and average interference constraints. In the former, we assume that full channel state information (CSI) is available at the base station, and we optimize the allowable transmit power for the D2D users so that the number of coexisting D2D communications is maximized. We further define a quality-of-service constraint for the D2D users. In practice, however, it is difficult to have complete CSI at the base station as it imposes heavy signaling overhead. Therefore, in the latter scenario, we assume that no knowledge about the location of D2D users and their CSI are available at the base station. This approach does not impose any signaling overhead. Our results show that even with no CSI knowledge, we are able to improve the system performance in terms of throughput by allowing coexisting D2D communications while satisfying the cellular user's constraints.