Discrete Transmit Power Devices in Dense Wireless Networks: Methodology and Case Study

Machine-type communications (MTC) in 5G will be mostly realized using low-cost transceivers with a small, discrete set of possible configurations. This is in contrast to more capable devices with software defined radio capabilities that support configurations over a practically continuous domain. We find that existing theoretical work assuming continuous domains cannot be immediately applied to such constrained MTC devices. Therefore, we propose a methodology that guides researchers in the process of developing effective MTC wireless systems with devices that have restricted capabilities. By following the proposed methodology, existing theories can be experimentally evaluated and replicated. We show how this methodology can be applied for developing and evaluating efficient interference mitigation systems on a case study using devices that support only discrete transmit power levels. In this case study, we formulate an interference mitigation problem and a corresponding game-theoretic formalism that can support discrete output power levels. We validated some of the existing results obtained analytically and in simulation and we also found that: 1) in practice, devices have to be penalized stronger than in theory to determine them to select all the available transmit power levels; 2) in practice, for the discrete case of the power allocation algorithm, the convergence speed does not increase exponentially with the number of devices; and 3) the proposed power selection algorithm converges in two to four iterations. Similarly, as in the presented case study, the methodology can be used to adapt and test other resource management solutions in an operating environment with real-world restrictions.