Power- and bandwith-efficient relay-assisted communications

根据欧盟委员会的估计，宽带技术(提供家庭接入)每年消耗的总能量将很快接近5000万千瓦时(或50TWh)，其中70%用于家庭，是服务器和整个网络消耗的能量的两倍[1]。考虑到网络数据速率预计每一年半几乎翻一番，宽带接入技术的功耗和相关成本正在指数级上升。在这些事实的推动下，我们预计我们今天的通信方式将发生重大变化：我们正以指数级的速度从有线转向无线接入。由于信息和通信技术正在推动我们的社会引擎，这种变化的深刻影响是不可避免的。目前，我们的无线基础设施具有相当严格的体系结构，如果用户设备没有最大限度地利用通信资源，例如某个位置的发射功率和无线电频谱，这些资源就会闲置。因此，由于其非动态资源分配策略，我们的无线网络显得非常低效。因此，跟上日益增长的“随时随地交流”的需求变得非常昂贵。

As estimated by the European Commission, the total annual energy consumed by broadband technologies (to provide access to homes) will soon approach 50,000,000,000 KWh (or 50 TWh), out of which 70% is consumed in homes, twice as much energy as spent in servers and across the networks [1]. Taking into account that network data rates are expected to almost double every one and a half years, the power consumption for broadband access technologies and the associated costs are rising exponentially. Driven by these facts, we expect significant changes to occur in the way we communicate today: we are moving from wire-line to wireless access at an exponential rate. As information and communication technologies are driving engines for our society, the profound impacts of such changes are inevitable. Currently, our wireless infrastructure has a rather rigid architecture where communication resources, such as transmit power and radio spectrum at a certain location, are left unused if the user devices are not utilizing these resources to their fullest extent. As such, our wireless networks appear highly inefficient due to its non-dynamic resource allocation strategy. Thus, it becomes very expensive to keep up with the ever increasing demand of ``communicating anywhere anytime''.