Optimal Routing for Multi-user Multi-hop Relay Networks via Dynamic Programming

TL;DR

This paper presents a dynamic programming-based method for optimal relay selection in multi-user multi-hop relay networks, effectively addressing the complexity introduced by multiple users and enabling efficient network performance optimization.

Contribution

It introduces a novel relay aggregation approach that allows dynamic programming to solve the multi-user relay selection problem with linear complexity in hops.

Findings

Efficient relay selection algorithm demonstrated through numerical examples.

Linear computational complexity in the number of hops achieved.

Improved outage probability minimization in multi-user relay networks.

Abstract

In this paper, we study the relay selection problem in multi-user, multi-hop relay networks with the objective of minimizing the maximum outage probability across all users. When only one user is present, it is well known that the optimal relay selection problem can be solved efficiently via dynamic programming. This solution breaks down in the multi-user scenario due to dependence between users. We resolve this challenge using a novel relay aggregation approach. On the expanded trellis, dynamic programming can be used to solve the optimal relay selection problem with computational complexity linear in the number of hops. Numerical examples illustrate the efficient use of this algorithm for relay networks.