Self-Interference Cancelation-Based Workload-Driven Duplex-Model Selection in Machine-Type Communication Networks

The machine-type communication (MTC) enables a broad range of applications from mission-critical services to massive deployment of autonomous devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) networks. To release more spectrum resources for facilitating the explosive traffic of MTC in ultradense Cellular-IoT (CIoT) networks, full-duplex (FD) technology has been considered as a candidate mechanic due to its respective advantages in terms of the spectral efficiency (SE). Compared with the traditional half-duplex (HD) technology, the FD technology can (in theory) attain twice the SE gain. Nevertheless, the performance of FD technology is severely limited by both the self-interference (SI) and the mutual interference (MI) in the presence of multiple users. What is more serious is that when FD technology is used in a multiuser communication system, the system performance is very sensitive to the service load of the entire network, and it may even appear fragile in an ultrahigh load environment. In this article, we will delve into investigating the performance of the FD technique in the CIoT networks by considering the impacts of a variety of aspects, including the SI cancelation capability (SICC) of the FD-mode devices, the network’s workload, as well as the devices’ distribution density (DDD), the purpose of which is to maximize both the SE and the sum throughput (ST) of the network by optimizing those critical parameters. It is shown that the FD mode is capable of improving the ST of the CIoT networks in either the low-traffic-volume or low-device-density regime, provided that the devices’ SICC could be up to 100dB. At the same time, research results show that further increasing both the devices’ density and the traffic load, even without compromising the FD devices’ SICC, will still help improve the performance superiority of FD technology. Numerical results show that by implementing an appropriate workload-driven mode-selection scheme, we can sufficiently exploit the FD/HD gain according to the instantaneous radio frequency environment.

I. Introduction

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the era of the Internet of Everything is coming. Massive heterogeneous devices, such as smart phones, wearable electronics, and even vehicles, are fully connected via the Internet to facilitate our lives in smart cities. Machine-type communication (MTC), referring to as automated connectivity and flexible data transportation among a massive number of devices [1], is paving the way for a broad range of IoT applications, including maritime IoT, industrial IoT, and Internet of Vehicles, etc. [2]–[4].