Optimal Context Aware Transmission Strategy for non-Orthogonal D2D Communications

The increasing traffic demand in cellular networks has recently led to the investigation of new strategies to save precious resources like spectrum and energy. A possible solution employs direct device-to-device (D2D) communications, which is particularly promising when the two terminals involved in the communications are located in close proximity. The D2D communications should coexist with other transmissions, so they must be careful scheduled in order to avoid harmful interference impacts. In this paper, we analyze how a distributed context-awareness, obtained by observing few local channel and topology parameters, can be used to adaptively exploit D2D communications. We develop a rigorous theoretical analysis to quantify the balance between the gain offered by a D2D transmission, and its impact on the other network communications. Based on this analysis, we derive two theorems that define the optimal strategy to be employed, in terms of throughput maximization, when a single or multiple transmit power levels are available for the D2D communications. We compare this strategy to the state-of-the-art in the same network scenario, showing how context awareness can be exploited to achieve a higher sum throughput and an improved fairness.