The role of asymptotic functions in network optimization and feasibility studies

TL;DR

This paper explores the significance of asymptotic functions in network optimization, providing a unified framework for analyzing feasibility and deriving bounds in wireless resource allocation problems.

Contribution

It reveals the deep connection between asymptotic functions and wireless network optimization, unifying existing approaches and establishing new conditions for fixed points and performance bounds.

Findings

Established necessary and sufficient conditions for fixed points of interference mappings.

Unified analysis framework for centralized and distributed wireless resource allocation.

Derived fundamental bounds on utility and energy efficiency in wireless networks.

Abstract

Solutions to network optimization problems have greatly benefited from developments in nonlinear analysis, and, in particular, from developments in convex optimization. A key concept that has made convex and nonconvex analysis an important tool in science and engineering is the notion of asymptotic function, which is often hidden in many influential studies on nonlinear analysis and related fields. Therefore, we can also expect that asymptotic functions are deeply connected to many results in the wireless domain, even though they are rarely mentioned in the wireless literature. In this study, we show connections of this type. By doing so, we explain many properties of centralized and distributed solutions to wireless resource allocation problems within a unified framework, and we also generalize and unify existing approaches to feasibility analysis of network designs. In particular, we show sufficient and necessary conditions for mappings widely used in wireless communication problems (more precisely, the class of standard interference mappings) to have a fixed point. Furthermore, we derive fundamental bounds on the utility and the energy efficiency that can be achieved by solving a large family of max-min utility optimization problems in wireless networks.