A Novel Hybrid Duplex Scheme for Relay Channel: Joint Optimization of Full-Duplex Duty Cycle and Source Power Allocation

Full-duplex (FD) mode has great potential in improving the spectral efficiency. Mitigating the effect of self-interference becomes one key for performance enhancement of FD system. This work proposes a novel hybrid duplex scheme where the relay receives information for a fraction of time and simultaneously transmits and receives information for the rest, following a duty cycle. First, we formulate the achievable rate maximization of the proposed scheme as a joint FD duty cycle and source power allocation optimization problem. The optimal FD duty cycle, the optimal source power allocation, and the maximal achievable rate are explicitly given for some cases and characterized in detail for other cases. Then, the proposed scheme is applied to two-hop relaying systems. Specifically, the optimal source power allocation is proved to be a water-filling solution over the FD phase and the receives-only phase on the source-relay link. By dividing the system as low-, medium-, and high-source power cases, the optimal FD duty cycle and the maximal achievable rate are obtained in (approximate) closed-form case-by-case, where the source power thresholds among cases are clearly expressed. Numerical results validate that the proposed hybrid duplex scheme outperforms other benchmark schemes and can improve the achievable rate significantly.