Reform of the Irrigation Sector and Creation of Functional and Sustainable Irrigation Water Users Associations (AUEI) in Niger: Capitalization of the Experience of the Konni AHA

During the 1980s, as part of a policy of liberalization, following budgetary cuts linked to the implementation of structural adjustment programs, management responsibilities for AHAs were transferred from ONAHA to cooperatives concerned. Due to lack of financial resources, but also because of poor management, everywhere in Niger we are witnessing an accelerated deterioration of the irrigation infrastructure of hydro-agricultural developments. Institutional studies carried out on this situation led the State of Niger to initiate a reform of the governance of hydro-agricultural developments, by streng-thening the status of ONAHA, by creating an Association of Irrigation Water Users (AUEI) and by restructuring the old cooperatives. Indeed, this research aims to analyze the creation of functional and sustainable Irrigation Water User Associations (AUEI) in Niger in a context of reform of the irrigation sector, and based on the experience of the Konni AHA. It is based on a methodological approach which takes into account documentary research and the collection of data from 115 farmers, selected by reasoned choice and directly concerned by the management of the irrigated area. The data collected was analyzed and the results were analyzed using the systemic approach and the diagnostic process. The results show that the main mission of the AUEI is to ensure better management of water, hydraulic equipment and infrastructure on the hydro-agricultural developments of Konni. The creation of the Konni AUEI was possible thanks to massive support from the populations and authorities in the implementation process. After its establishment, the AUEI experienced a certain lethargy for some time due to the rehabilitation work of the AHA but currently it is functional and operational in terms of associative life and governance. Thus, the constraints linked to the legal system, the delay in the completion of the work, the uncertainties of access to irrigation water but also the problems linked to the change in mentality of certain ONAHA agents constitute the challenges that must be resolved in the short term for the operationalization of the Konni AUEI.

Joint User Association and Satellite Selection for Satellite-Terrestrial Integrated networks

In this paper, we investigate a cooperation mechanism for satellite-terrestrial integrated networks. The terrestrial relays act as the supplement of traditional small cells and cooperatively provide seamless coverage for users in the densely populated areas.To deal with the dynamic satellite backhaul links and backhaul capacity caused by the satellite mobility, severe co-channel interference in both satellite backhaul links and user links introduced by spectrum sharing,and the difference demands of users as well as heterogeneous characteristics of terrestrial backhaul and satellite backhaul, we propose a joint user association and satellite selection scheme to maximize the total sum rate. The optimization problem is formulated via jointly considering the influence of dynamic backhaul links, individual requirements and targeted interference management strategies, which is decomposed into two subproblems: user association and satellite selection. The user association is formulated as a nonconvex optimization problem, and solved through a low-complexity heuristic scheme to find the most suitable access point serving each user. Then, the satellite selection is resolved based on the cooperation among terrestrial relays to maximize the total backhaul capacity with the minimum date rate constraints. Finally,simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in terms of total sum rate and power efficiency of TRs' backhaul.

User Association and Power Allocation for UAV-Assisted Networks: A Distributed Reinforcement Learning Approach

Unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)can be employed as aerial base stations(BSs)due to their high mobility and flexible deployment.This paper focuses on a UAV-assisted wireless network,where users can be scheduled to get access to either an aerial BS or a terrestrial BS for uplink transmission.In contrast to state-of-the-art designs focusing on the instantaneous cost of the network,this paper aims at minimizing the long-term average transmit power consumed by the users by dynamically optimizing user association and power allocation in each time slot.Such a joint user association scheduling and power allocation problem can be formulated as a Markov decision process(MDP).Unfortunately,solving such an MDP problem with the conventional relative value iteration(RVI)can suffer from the curses of dimensionality,in the presence of a large number of users.As a countermeasure,we propose a distributed RVI algorithm to reduce the dimension of the MDP problem,such that the original problem can be decoupled into multiple solvable small-scale MDP problems.Simulation results reveal that the proposed algorithm can yield lower longterm average transmit power consumption than both the conventional RVI algorithm and a baseline algorithm with myopic policies.

User Association in Heterogeneous Network with Dual Connectivity and Constrained Backhaul

A novel user association model for heterogeneous network(Het Net) with dual connectivity(DC) and constrained backhaul is proposed in this paper, where not only the best combination of serving macro cell and small cell for each user to associate is selected but also the optimal traffi c split between the macro cell and small cell is determined to enhance both radio resource effi ciency and backhaul capacity utilization. To solve this optimization problem, an intuitive algorithm based on iteratively solving two sub-problems is proposed. One sub-problem is a binary integer programming problem and a corresponding greedy algorithm is proposed, while the other sub-problem is a simple linear programming problem and can be easily solved. Numerical results show that the proposed model and algorithm can achieve better radio resource effi ciency and backhaul capacity utilization compared with user association in Het Net without DC, which validate the capacity enhancement potentials of radio resource coordination in Het Net with DC.

Uplink Performance Analysis in Multi-Tier Heterogeneous Cellular Networks with Power Control and Biased User Association

A K-tier uplink heterogeneous cellular network is modelled and analysed by accounting for both truncated channel inversion power control and biased user association. Each user has a maximum transmit power constraint and transmits data when it has sufficient transmit power to perform channel inversion. With biased user association, each user is associated with a base station(BS) that provides the maximum received power weighted by a bias factor, but not their nearest BS. Stochastic geometry is used to evaluate the performances of the proposed system model in terms of the outage probability and ergodic rate for each tier as functions of the biased and power control parameters. Simulations validate our analytical derivations. Numerical results show that there exists a trade-off introduced by the power cut-off threshold and the maximum user transmit power constraint. When the maximum user transmit power becomes a binding constraint, the overall performance is independent of BS densities. In addition, we have shown that it is beneficial for the outage and rate performances by optimizing different network parameters such as the power cut-off threshold as well as the biased factors.

Two-Timescale Online Learning of Joint User Association and Resource Scheduling in Dynamic Mobile Edge Computing

For the mobile edge computing network consisting of multiple base stations and resourceconstrained user devices,network cost in terms of energy and delay will incur during task offloading from the user to the edge server.With the limitations imposed on transmission capacity,computing resource,and connection capacity,the per-slot online learning algorithm is first proposed to minimize the time-averaged network cost.In particular,by leveraging the theories of stochastic gradient descent and minimum cost maximum flow,the user association is jointly optimized with resource scheduling in each time slot.The theoretical analysis proves that the proposed approach can achieve asymptotic optimality without any prior knowledge of the network environment.Moreover,to alleviate the high network overhead incurred during user handover and task migration,a two-timescale optimization approach is proposed to avoid frequent changes in user association.With user association executed on a large timescale and the resource scheduling decided on the single time slot,the asymptotic optimality is preserved.Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed online learning algorithms.

Joint User Association and Resource Allocation for Self-Backhaul Ultra-Dense Networks

In order to meet the exponentially increasing demand on mobile data traffic, self-backhaul ultra-dense networks(UDNs) combined with millimeter wave(mm Wave) communications are expected to provide high spatial multiplexing gain and wide bandwidths for multi-gigabit peak data rates. In selfbackhaul UDNs, how to make the radio access rates of small cells match their backhaul rates by user association and how to dynamically allocate bandwidth for the access links and backhaul links to balance two-hop link resources are two key problems on improving the overall throughputs. Based on this, a joint scheme of user association and resource allocation is proposed in self-backhaul ultra-dense networks. Because of the combinatorial and nonconvex features of the original optimization problem, it has been divided into two subproblems. Firstly, to make the radio access rates of small base stations match their backhaul rates and maximize sum access rates per Hz of all small cells, a proportional constraint is introduced, and immune optimization algorithm(IOA) is adopted to optimize the association indicator variables and the boresight angles of between users and base stations. Then, the optimal backhaul and access bandwidths are calculated by differentiating the general expression of overall throughput. Simulation results indicatethat the proposed scheme increases the overall throughputs significantly compared to the traditional minimum-distance based association scheme.

Resource Allocation and User Association for HTTP Adaptive Streaming in Heterogeneous Cellular Networks with Small Cells

Video streaming,especially hypertext transfer protocol based(HTTP) adaptive streaming(HAS) of video,has been expected to be a dominant application over mobile networks in the near future,which brings huge challenge for the mobile networks.Although some works have been done for video streaming delivery in heterogeneous cellular networks,most of them focus on the video streaming scheduling or the caching strategy design.The problem of joint user association and rate allocation to maximize the system utility while satisfying the requirement of the quality of experience of users is largely ignored.In this paper,the problem of joint user association and rate allocation for HTTP adaptive streaming in heterogeneous cellular networks is studied,we model the optimization problem as a mixed integer programming problem.And to reduce the computational complexity,an optimal rate allocation using the Lagrangian dual method under the assumption of knowing user association for BSs is first solved.Then we use the many-to-one matching model to analyze the user association problem,and the joint user association and rate allocation based on the distributed greedy matching algorithm is proposed.Finally,extensive simulation results are illustrated to demonstrate the performance of the proposed scheme.

User Association and Wireless Backhaul Bandwidth Allocation for 5G Heterogeneous Networks in the Millimeter-Wave Band

The user association and wireless backhaul bandwidth allocation for a two-tier heterogeneous network （HetNet） in the mil- limeter wave （mmWave） band is proposed in this article. The two-tier HetNet is built up with a macro base station （MBS） and several small cell SBSs, where the MBS is assumed to be equipped with large-scale antenna arrays but the SBSs only have single-antenna capa- bility and they rely on the wireless link to the MBS for backhaul. The sum of logarithmic user rate, which is established according to the result of multi-user Multiple Input Mul- tiple Output （MIMO） downlink employing Zero-Force Beamforming （ZFBF）, is chosen as the network utility for the objective func- tion. And a distributed optimization algorithm based on primal and dual decomposition is used to jointly optimize the user association variable xj,z and the wireless backhaul band- width factor α. Simulation results reveal that the distributed optimization algorithm jointly optimizing two variables outperforms the con- ventional SINR-based user association strate- gies.

Delay-Based User Association in Heterogeneous Networks with Backhaul

The Internet of things(IoT) as an important application of future communication networks puts a high premium on delay issues. Thus when Io T applications meet heterogeneous networks(HetNets) where macro cells are overlaid with small cells, some traditional problems need rethinking. In this paper, we investigate the delay-addressed association problem in two-tier Het Nets considering different backhaul technologies. Specifically, millimeter wave and fiber links are used to provide high-capacity backhaul for small cells. We first formulate the user association problem to minimize the total delay which depends on the probability of successful transmission, the number of user terminals(UTs), and the number of base stations(BSs). And then two algorithms for active mode and mixed mode are proposed to minimize the network delay. Simulation results show that algorithms based on mutual selection between UTs and BSs have better performance than those based on distance. And algorithms for mixed modes have less delay than those for active mode when the number of BSs is large enough, compared to the number of UTs.

A Distributed User Association and Resource Allocation Method in Cache-Enabled Small Cell Networks

Cache-enabled small cell networks have been regarded as a promising approach for network operators to cope with the explosive data traffic growth in future 5 G networks. However, the user association and resource allocation mechanism has not been thoroughly studied under given content placement situation. In this paper, we formulate the joint optimization problem of user association and resource allocation as a mixed integer nonlinear programming(MINLP) problem aiming at deriving a balance between the total utility of data rates and the total data rates retrieved from caches. To solve this problem, we propose a distributed relaxing-rounding method. Simulation results demonstrate that the distributed relaxing-rounding method outperforms traditional max-SINR method and range-expansion method in terms of both total utility of data rates and total data rates retrieved from caches in practical scenarios. In addition, effects of storage and backhaul capacities on the performance are also studied.

Joint User Association and Caching Placement for Cache-Enabling UAV Networks

Cache-enabling unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)are considered for storing popular contents and providing downlink data offloading in cellular networks.In this context,we formulate a joint optimization problem of user association,caching placement,and backhaul bandwidth allocation for minimizing content acquisition delay with consideration of UAVs’energy constraint.We decompose the formulated problem into two subproblems:i)user association and caching placement and ii)backhaul bandwidth allocation.We first obtain the optimal bandwidth allocation with given user association and caching placement by the Lagrangian multiplier approach.After that,embedding the backhaul bandwidth allocation algorithm,we solve the user association and caching placement problem by a threedimensional(3D)matching method.Then we decompose it into two two-dimensional(2D)matching problems and develop low-complexity algorithms.The proposed scheme converges and exhibits a low computational complexity.Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed cache-enabling UAV framework outperforms the conventional UAV-assisted cellular networks in terms of content acquisition delay and the proposed scheme achieves significantly lower content acquisition delay compared with other two benchmark schemes.

Spectrum-Efficient User Association in Caching Enabled Dense Small Cell Network

In this paper,we reveal the fundamental limitation of network densification on the performance of caching enabled small cell network(CSCN)under two typical user association rules,namely,contentand distance-based rules.It indicates that immoderately caching content would significantly change the interference distribution in CSCN,which may degrade the network area spectral efficiency(ASE).Meanwhile,it is shown that content-based rule outperforms the distance-based rule in terms of network ASE only when small cell base stations(BSs)are sparsely deployed with low decoding thresholds.Moreover,it is proved that network ASE under distance-based user association serves as the upper bound of that under content-based rule in dense BS regime.To enable more spectrum-efficient user association in dense CSCN,we further optimize network ASE by designing a probabilistic content retrieving strategy based on distance-based rule.With the optimized retrieving probability,network ASE could be substantially enhanced and even increase with the growing BS density in dense BS regime.

Irrigation Demand VS Supply-Remote Sensing and GIS Approach

To determine the irrigation requirements of rice crop on different soils, an integrated approach is used using Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. Depending on the type of soil, climate and the crop acreage, the water requirement for paddy fields is derived. This study is focused on estimating the water demand for rice crop in Rabi season. Crop evapo-transpiration and soil percolation losses account more in rice fields especially in hot climate like Rabi season. In addition to evapo-transpiration and percolation losses, the conveyance losses are also accountable in the case of unlined canals. Satellite data is used to estimate the rice and fallow lands. In conjunction to satellite interpreted data, climate and soil data are also integrated in GIS platform. CROPWAT model is used to determine the crop evapo-transpiration (ETc). There are 11 Water User’s Associations (WUA) in the command area and under which 13 canal blocks are delineated. These blocks are again delineated in to 212 sub blocks. This study indicates that there exists a 5% to 20% of water deficiency in some WUAs and also water surplus in some WUAs varying from 15% to 40%.

Joint User Association and Resource Allocation for mmWave Communication:A Neural Network Approach

With the rapid growth of wireless data demand and the shortage of global bandwidth,the use of millimeter-wave(mmWave)frequency band for wireless cellular networks has become the core content of the fifth generation cellular network.Because mmWave communication has different characteristics from microwave communication,using traditional optimization techniques to manage the resource of mmWave communication networks is inappropriate.In this paper,we propose a neural network-based algorithm to solve the joint user association and resource allocation for mmWave communication system with multi-connectivity(MC)and integrated access backhaul(IAB).The resource allocation problem is formulated as a mixed-integer quadratically constrained quadratic programming(MIQCQP),which is very difficult to solve.First,we decompose the MIQCQP into two sub-problems,i.e.,binary associated matrix sub-problem and continuous IAB ratio sub-problem.Then we propose a neural network to solve the binary associated matrix inference problem and a resource allocation algorithm to find the sub-optimal IAB ratio.Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve good performance with a fast inference speed.

Joint user association and resource partition for downlink-uplink decoupling in multi-tier HetNets

Traditional cellular networks require the downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) of mobile users (MUs) to be associated with a single base station (BS). However, the power gap between BSs and MUs in different transmission environments results in the BS with the strongest downlink differing from the BS with the strongest uplink. In addition, the significant increase in the number of wireless machine type communication (MTC) devices accessing cellular networks has created a DL/UL traffic imbalance with higher traffic volume on the uplink. In this paper,a joint user association and resource partition framework for downlink-uplink decoupling (DUDe) is developed for a tiered heterogeneous cellular network (HCN). Different from the traditional association rules such as maximal received power and range extension, a coalition game based scheme is proposed for the optimal user association with DUDe. The stability and convergence of this scheme are proven and shown to converge to a Nash equilibrium at a geometric rate. Moreover, the DL and UL optimal bandwidth partition for BSs is derived based on user association considering fairness. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme,which enhances the sum rate compared with other user association strategies.

Energy-Efficient Joint User Association and Power Allocation in Relay-Aided Massive MIMO Systems

Energy efficiency is an important metric for downlink transmission in an amplify-and-forward relay-aided massive multiple-input multiple-output system,but has not been well investigated.In this work,considering the characteristics of such a system and quality-of-service requirements of users,the energy-efficient joint user asso-ciation and power allocation problem is studied.First,the closed-form expression of system energy efficiency under the proportional fairness criterion is derived.Then,the proportionally fair utility of system energy efficiency is maximized under constraints of minimum signal-to-noise ratio requirements of users and maximum transmit powers of the base station(BS)and relay stations.As it is difficult to solve this optimization problem directly due to its mixed-integer and non-convex features,the original problem is decomposed into a user association sub-problem and a power allocation sub-problem.For the former,optimum user association is determined by solving a Lagrangian dual problem with a sub-gradient algorithm;for the latter,optimum transmit powers of the BS and each relay station are determined by using Newton’s method.Finally,a sub-optimal solution of the original problem is obtained by a low-complexity iterative algorithm.Simulation results show that the proposed joint user association and power allocation algorithm can offload the traffic of the BS effectively,keep the BS and relay stations operate at low power levels,and improve the system energy efficiency significantly,compared with user association-only schemes.

User association and resource allocation in green mobile edge networks using deep reinforcement learning

In order to meet the emerging requirements for high computational complexity, low delay and energy consumption of the 5 th generation wireless systems(5 G) network, ultra-dense networks(UDNs) combined with multi-access edge computing(MEC) can further improve network capacity and computing capability. In addition, the integration of green energy can effectively reduce the on-grid energy consumption of system and realize green computation. This paper studies the joint optimization of user association(UA) and resource allocation(RA) in MEC enabled UDNs under the green energy supply pattern, users need to perceive the green energy status of base stations(BSs) and choose the one with abundant resources to associate. To minimize the computation cost for all users, the optimization problem is formulated as a mixed integer nonlinear programming(MINLP) which is NP-hard. In order to solve the problem, a deep reinforcement learning(DRL)-based association and optimized allocation(DAOA) scheme is designed to solve it in two stages. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme has good performance in terms of computation cost and time out ratio, as well achieve load balancing potentially.

Improved Q-learning algorithm for load balance in millimeter wave backhaul networks

With the intensive deployment of users and the drastic increase of traffic load, a millimeter wave （mmWave） backhaul network was widely investigated. A typical mmWave backhaul network consists of the macro base station （MBS） and the small base stations （SBSs）. How to efficiently associate users with the MBS and the SBSs for load balancing is a key issue in the network. By adding a virtual power bias to the SBSs, more users can access to the SBSs to share the load of the MBS. The bias values shall be set reasonably to guarantee the backhaul efficiency and the quality of service （QoS）. An improved Q-learning algorithm is proposed to effectively adjust the bias value for each SBS. In the proposed algorithm, each SBS becomes an agent with independent learning and can achieve the best behavior, namely the optimal bias value through a series of training. Besides, an improved behavior selection mechanism is adopted to improve the learning efficiency and accelerate the convergence of the algorithm. Finally, simulations conducted in the 60 GHz band demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm in backhaul efficiency and user outage probability.

Downlink and Uplink Decoupling in Heterogeneous Networks for 5G and Beyond

To meet the explosively increased data traffic demand from 5G and beyond,one of the most promising technologies is densified heterogeneous networks(HetNets).In HetNets,base stations(BSs)are brought closer and closer to users by densifying small BSs,which results in considerable high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency for cellular systems.However,HetNet topology challenges the traditional cellular systems.One of the most important challenges is user association.Aiming to avoid the drawback brought by coupled access(CA)in user association of HetNets,a decoupled access(DA)approach has emerged recently.By allowing access points in uplink(UL)and downlink(DL)association to be different,DA significantly improves UL performance of HetNets.This article focuses on recent works in DA.First,typical scenarios of HetNets for DA are described,which is followed by presenting two major decoupled association policies under typical scenarios.Then,DA shows its superiority over CA under different scenarios and decoupled association policies via various performance metrics.Finally,future work on DA in HetNets is discussed.