Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation based on

Hypergraph 3D Matching for D2D-Assisted

mMTC networks
Jinlong Chai∗ , Lei Feng∗ , Fanqin Zhou∗ , Pan Zhao∗ , Peng Yu∗ , and Wenjing Li∗†
∗ StateKey Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology,
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
† Email: wjli@bupt.edu.cn

Abstract—Energy efficiency is essential for massive machine-
type communication (mMTC), because of the limited energy
in internet of things (IoT) devices. We consider a two-hop
amplify-and-forward (AF) relay communication, and allow IoT
devices with inferior channel conditions to connect relays by
using device-to-device (D2D) technology. This paper proposes to
jointly optimize relay selection, channel allocation and power
control, so that the total energy efficiency is maximized while
guaranteeing the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR)
requirements of relays and BSs. The formulated joint opti-
mization problem involves a nonlinear fractional programming
(NFP) problem and a user-relay-channel matching problem
which is NP-hard. Therefore, we propose a two-stage approach
composed of the Dinkelbach method and a hypergraph-based 3D
matching (HGM). Simulation results show that the total energy
efficiency under the HGM is 8.41% and 59.85% higher than
the iterative Hungarian method (IHM) and the minimum zero
surface prioritized allocation (MZPA), respectively.
Index Terms—Energy-efficient, Resource management, Nonlin-
ear fractional programming, Hypergraph, mMTC
I. I NTRODUCTION
Massive machine-type communication (mMTC) is expected
to play an essential role within future 5G wireless networks.
It will be able to support tens of billions of low-complexity
and energy-constrained machine-type terminals [1]. In specific,
mMTC requires more than 1 million connections within 1
square kilometer, while today’s 4G mobile networks support
up to several thousand connections, which often limits its use
in mobile phones, computers and similar smart devices [2].
The main challenge in mMTC is reliable and efficient
connectivity for a massive number of devices, whose solutions
need to enable wide area coverage and deep indoor penetration
while having low cost and being energy efficient. At the
same time, most mMTC devices are usually equipped with
low-capacity batteries and are expected to operate for long
periods of time without the requirement for battery replace-
ment. Therefore, very low power consumption is critical to
operations, which means that energy-efficient is essential [3].
Considering energy-efficient access issues, the existing re-
search mainly shows solicitude for the following three fields:
relay selection [4], [5], channel allocation [6], and power
control [7]. These studies mainly take into account some two
of them. However, neglecting anyone of them will result in
low energy efficiency of the network. Therefore, this paper
considers relay selection, channel allocation and power control
simultaneously, and obtains the optimal solution of the energy-
efficient problem.
We allow internet of things (IoT) devices with inferior chan-
nel conditions to use the IoT devices with superior channel and
energy conditions as relay nodes to forward the signals to the
BS. In order to improve resource utilization in the system,
channel-inferior IoT devices will use device-to-device (D2D)
technology to communicate with relay IoT devices and multi-
plex the channels of normal IoT devices. By using relays and
multiplexing channels, this paper aims at improving the energy
efficiency and resource utilization in the mMTC networks. To
maximize the total energy efficiency, we formulate the joint
optimization problem involving a power control optimization
and a user-relay-channel matching problem which is an NP-
hard three-dimensional (3D) matching problem [8]. Several
approaches have been proposed to provide a feasible solution
in the 3D matching problem, e.g., [8]–[10]. Because of the
low computational complexity of the hypergraph-based 3D
matching (HGM) [10], in this paper, we seek a solution of
the joint problem of the power control optimization and the
user-relay-channel matching by using the Dinkelbach method
and the HGM.
The novelty of our work lies in the simultaneous considera-
tion of power control, relay selection, and channel assignment.
The main contributions of this article are summarized as
follows:
• The joint optimization involving relay selection, channel
allocation and power control is formulated as a mixed in-
teger programming (MIP) problem. To make it tractable,
we equivalently decompose this problem into a power
control subproblem and a user-relay-channel matching
subproblem.
• This paper describes the power control problem as a
nonlinear fractional programming (NFP) problem, and
proposes the Dinkelbach method to solve it.
• The user-relay-channel matching problem is an NP-hard

This work has been supported by National Science and Technology Major 3D matching problem. To make it tractable, we solve it
Project (Grant No. 2018ZX030110004) by using the HGM.

978-1-5386-4727-1/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

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 The rest of this article is organized as follows. Section II The cell edge IoT device which use D2D technology to
reviews the related work. Section III introduces the system communicate with a relay, is called D-IoT. R-IoT represents an
model and objective formulation. In Section IV, we introduce IoT device which is selected as a relay node. N-IoT indicates
the two-stage approach including the Dinkelbach method and the remaining normal IoT device in the network. In order to
the HGM to solve the MIP problem. Section V shows simu- facilitate the representation of D-IoT, we define the set of D-
lation results and corresponding discussions. Finally, Section IoT D = {1, 2, ..., D}. Similarly, the sets of R-IoT and channel
VI summarizes the paper. (CH) are defined as R = {1, 2, ..., R} and K = {1, 2, ..., K},
respectively.
II. R ELATED W ORK
The energy-efficient problem has interested the researchers TransP:Pn
recently. Several approaches have been proposed to provide the Channel
Used No-Use
excellent solution: relay selection [4], [5], channel allocation Bk TransP:Pd
Channel TransP:Pn
[6], and power control [7]. No-Use Used
TransP:Pn
Considering relay selection, [4] investigated a relay alloca- TransP:Pn
TransP:Pd
tion method based on the double auction theory in cooperative HeNB

cellular networks, and proposed an energy-efficient maximum eNB TransP:Pn

weighted matching algorithm to optimize the energy efficiency TransP:Pn

TransP:Pn
of cell edge users. J. Zhao et al. proposed a distributed
TransP:Pd
algorithm adopting a two-level game model. The Stackelberg *TransP: Transmit power
game in the inner level was used to select relay nodes, and the
Active N-IoT Active R-IoT Active D-IoT
coalition formation game in the second level solved the spec-
Cellular link Interference link D2D link
trum allocation problem of D2D links [5]. In terms of channel
Fig. 1. D2D assited mMTC networks.
allocation, [6] formulated the channel allocation problem as
a MIP problem, and then proposed an efficient subchannel D-IoT d ∈ D implements a simple two-hop transmission. In
assignment scheme, as well as transmission mode selection the first hop, D-IoT d multiplexes an orthogonal subchannel
strategy. For power control, [7] addressed reducing energy k with bandwidth Bk , and communicates with R-IoT r by
consumption of energy-constrained wireless devices, through D2D technology. In the second hop, the R-IoT r uses the
energy-aware cooperative relaying, described the problem as sub-channel allocated by the BS, adopts an amplifying and
an assignment game, and proposed a credit-based mechanism forwarding (AF) strategy, and forwards the received signal to
to reward cooperative players. the eNB or HeNB. In this scenario, the D-IoT in a certain time
The basic 3D matching problem has already been exten- slot may not entirely complete the communication. If D-IoT
sively studied [8]–[10]. In [8], T. Kim et al. devised the does not complete the communication, we allow it continually
iterative Hungarian method (IHM), which can offer near- participates in the matching in the next time slot until D-IoTs
optimal performance with polynomial complexity. In [9], mini- have totally completed the data transmission or reached the
mum zero-surface preferred assignment (MZPA) was proposed maximum number of allowed loops. It should be noted that the
to solve multidimensional assignment problem appearing in macro BS knows the information of all devices and schedules
multi-sensor multi-target applications. In [10], Q. Wei et al. resources among N-IoTs, R-IoTs and D-IoTs.
studied a resource allocation problem in vehicle-to-everything
communications, which was formulated as a 3D matching
TABLE I
problem, then exploited hypergraph theory and proposed a S YMBOL S UMMARY
local search based 3D matching algorithm to solve it.
These studies only consider some factors in power allo- Symbol Definition
d The serial number of D-IoT, and 1 ≤ d ≤ D
cation, relay selection and channel assignment, and can not r The serial number of R-IoT, and 1 ≤ r ≤ R
realize the best energy efficiency performance of the network. k The serial number of channel, and 1 ≤ k ≤ K
k
Different from these related works, we focus on the target γd,r,b The SINR of d → r → b links
k
Cd,r,b The d → r → b link’s channel capacity
of achieving optimal total energy efficiency of the network
by considering power control, relay selection, and channel Pd,r,b Total power consumption of the d → r → b link
Pd The transmit power of D-IoT
allocation at the same time. Because 3D matching problem Pn The transmit power of N-IoT and R-IoT
is NP-hard, we use the HGM with lower computational P0 Silent power of IoT devices
complexity and estimable approximation ratio compared with EEd,r,k The energy efficiency of the d → r → b link
IHM and MZPA.
III. S YSTEM M ODEL A ND P ROBLEM F ORMULATION B. Energy Efficiency Calculation
A. D2D Assisted mMTC Network Architecture Let hi,j denote the channel gain from i to j, where i
As shown in Fig. 1, there are three types of IoT dervices in and j represent IoT device or BS. If the channel gain has a
a typical mMTC scenario with both macrocells and microcells. superscript, such as hki,j , it means that the channel gain from

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i to j by using the k-channel. In particular, hki,j and hkj,i are C. Problem Formulation
equal in amount due to channel reciprocity. In order to ensure the reliable transmission, the SINRs
Denote the symbols transmitted by D-IoT and N-IoT as received by R-IoTs and BSs must be greater than the SINR
2 2
sd and sn , respectively, where E[|sd | ] = E[|sn | ] = 1 [11]. k
threshold γth , i.e., min{γd,r k
, γd,r,b , γr,b } ≥ γth , yielding the
When D-IoT transmits signals at the first hop, the transmission transmit power constraint for Pd , PdL ≤ Pd ≤ PdU , ∀d, r, k,
of D-IoT d is interfered by the N-IoT n whose channel is where
multiplexed. The D-IoT d transmits signal with the optimum 2
power Pd to maximize total energy efficiency. At the second (1 + γr,b )γth γth |hkd,r |
PdL = max{ , }, η = 2 ,
hop, the R-IoT r transmits the received signals to a BS with (γr,b − γth )η η |hkn,r | Pn + σ 2
the transmit power Pn . The received signal [12] at the BS is (6)
2
Pn |hm,B | σ2
PdU = min{Pn , 2 − 2 }.
1 1 1
Y = Pn 2 hr,b β · {Pd 2 hkd,r sd + Pn 2 hkn,r sn + z1 } + z2 , (1) γth |hd,B | |hd,B |
We assume that the channel of N-IoT can be reused by at
where z1 and z2 are the noise terms with complex Gaussian most one D-IoT, and define a binary variable θd,k for channel
2
distribution distributed as CN (0, σ 2 ). The β = (Pd |hkd,r | + allocation of D-IoTs as
2 1
Pn |hkn,r | + σ 2 )− 2 is the power normalization factor at R-IoT
(
1, when channel k is allocated to D-IoT d,
r. Substituting the β into Y , the SINR of the two-hop link θd,k = (7)
0, otherwise.
from D-IoT d to BS b through R-IoT r can be calculated by
k
Similarly, the binary variable ξd,r indicates that each D-IoT
k
γd,r γr,b can select one R-IoT as a relay node.
γd,r,b = k +γ
, (2)
γd,r r,b + 1
(
1, when R-IoT r is allocated to D-IoT d,
ξd,r = (8)
where γd,rk 2 2
= (|hkd,r | Pd )/(|hkn,r | Pn + σ 2 ) represents the 0, otherwise.
SINR received by R-IoT r [13]. It should be noted that, We define XD×R×K ∈ RD×R×K as a D × R × K binary
because of the sparsity of cell edge devices, the interference matrix, i.e., xd,r,k ∈ {0, 1}. xd,r,k = 1 indicates that the D-
that D-IoT may exert to R-IoT has been ignored. The SINR of IoT d multiplexes the k-th channel and transmits through the
2
the link from R-IoT r to BS b is given by γr,b = |hr,b | Pn /σ 2 . R-IoT r [16]. Obviously,
k 2 2
The γn,b = Pn |hkn,b | /(Pd |hkd,b | + σ 2 ) represents the SINR (
of the link from N-IoT n to BS b, and the subscript b stands 1, θd,k = ξd,r = 1,
xd,r,k = (9)
for the connected BS. 0, otherwise.
According to the Shannon’s theorem, the channel transmis-
sion rate of the d → r → b link can be expressed as follow: Each channel can not be multiplexed by two or more D-
IoTs at the same time. And each R-IoT can only be selected
k
Cd,r,b k
= Bk log2 (1 + γd,r,b ). (3) as the relay node by at most one D-IoT. There is constraint

X R
D X D X
X K
During this process, the power consumptions of D-IoT and xkd,r ≤ 1, ∀k, xrd,k ≤ 1, ∀r. (10)
R-IoT are Pd + P0 and Pn + P0 , respectively. Pd represents d=1 r=1 d=1 k=1
the transmit power of D-IoT, Pn represents the transmit power By observing (6) and (10), joint power control, channel
of R-IoT, and P0 represents the silent power consumption of allocation, and relay selection optimization are modeled as
the IoT device. Therefore, the power consumption [14] of the
D X
R X
K
end-to-end link is X
(P1): max xd,r,k EEd,r,k
P,X
d=1 r=1 k=1
Pd,r,b = Pd + Pn + 2P0 . (4)
s.t. PdL ≤ Pd ≤ PdU , ∀d, r, k,
D X R
In order to maximize total energy efficiency of the network, X (11)
the energy efficiency coefficient is defined as the number of xkd,r ≤ 1, ∀k,
bits transmitted per joule, i.e., ”bit/Joule”. Assuming that the d=1 r=1
D X K
duration of the transmission phase is T , the transmission rate X
is C, and the transmission power is P , the energy efficiency xrd,k ≤ 1, ∀r.
d=1 k=1
can be expressed as EE = CT C
P T = P [15]. Therefore, when
D-IoT d reuses the k-th channel, the energy efficiency of the (P1) is a MIP problem that is extremely complex to solve
two-hop link can be expressed as directly. Because IoT devices are sparse in the edge of cell, the
interference that D-IoT may exert to R-IoT can be ignored. As
k k a result, the optimization variables P and X are independent.
Cd,r,b Bk log2 (1 + γd,r,b )
EEd,r,k = = . (5) Therefore, we can decompose the (P1) into two subproblems.
Pd,r,b Pd + Pn + 2P0

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IV. P ROBLEM D ECOMPOSITION A ND A LGORITHM D ESIGN
(P1) is a complex MIP problem which is intractable to
solve directly. The objective function in (P1) can be de-
composed intoP two optimization subproblems, so we deform
D PR PK
(P1) to maxX d=1 r=1 k=1 xd,r,k · maxP EEd,r,k . The
constraints (6) and (10) are separable, therefore, we can
decompose (P1) into two optimization subproblems, including
the energy-efficient optimization subproblem
(P2): ?
EEd,r,k = max EEd,r,k
P (12)
s.t. P L ≤ Pd ≤ P U , ∀d, r, k,
and the 3D matching subproblem
D X
X R X
K
? ?
(P3): Φ(X ) = max xd,r,k EEd,r,k
X qt+1 = qt −
d=1 r=1 k=1
D X
R D X K
X X
s.t. xkd,r ≤ 1, ∀k, xrd,k
d=1 r=1 d=1 k=1
In this section, we discuss the solutions of (P2) and (P3).
The solution to the (P2) problem is first discussed below.
A. Dinkelbach Method for NFP
The power control problem to maximum energy efficiency,
while simultaneously satisfying the SINR constrains of both
R-IoT and BS, is expressed as
Bk log2 (1 + γd,r,b )
max f (Pd ) =
Pd Pd + Pn + 2P0
s.t. P L
≤ Pd ≤ P U , ∀d, r, k.
The above objective function in (14) is a pseudo-concave
form in Pd , which is the ratio of a concave function and a
positive linear function. One way to solve this problem is
the Dinkelbach method, which converts the fractional pseudo-
concave objective function into a concave function. We define
φ(Pd )
f (Pd ) = , (15)
ψ(Pd )
where φ(Pd ) = log2 (1+γd,r,b ) and ψ(Pd ) = B1k Pd + PnB +2P0
k
Since φ(Pd ) is a concave function and ψ(Pd ) is a positive lin-
ear function, we construct the following optimization problem:
g(Pd ) = h(q) = φ(Pd ) − q · ψ(Pd )
1 Pn + 2P0 (16)
= log2 (1 + γd,r,b ) − q · ( Pd + ),
Bk Bk
where q is a constant which equals to the maximum value
of f (Pd ), i.e., q = max f (Pd ). In other words, if Pd? =
arg max f (Pd ), then g(Pd? ) = 0.
Since ∂ 2 γd,r,b /∂Pd2 < 0, then γd,r,b is a concave function
in Pd . According to the principle of preserving convex-
ity/concavity, we can discovery that g(Pd ) is also a concave
function. The analytical solution of the g(Pd ) is difficult to
acquire, so we use an iterative algorithm based on Dinkelback
method to approximate optimal solution of the problem.
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Algorithm 1: Dinkelbach Algorithm.
Input : Functions φ(p) and ψ(p), threshold .
Output: The optimal solution p? and the maximum
value of f (p), i.e., q ? .
1 Select any p0 ∈ S, set t = 1, q1 = ψ(pφ(p0 )
.
0)
2 Solve g(p) = max{φ(p) − qk ψ(p)|p ∈ S}, and the
optimal solution is pt .
3 If h(qt ) − h(qt−1 ) < , stop. At this moment, p? = pt ,
φ(pt )
and q ? = qt . Otherwise, qt+1 = ψ(p t)
and t = t + 1, go
to 2.
φ(pt )
where qt+1 = ψ(pt ) is derived from the Newton iteration
method.
h(qt ) φ(pt ) − pt ψ(pt ) φ(pt )
0 = qt − = . (17)
(13) h (qt ) −ψ(pt ) ψ(pt )
The Algorithm 1 is proved to be able to obtain the global
≤ 1, ∀r.
optimal solution and converge superlinearly [17].
B. HGM for User-relay-channel Matching
(P3) is a weighted 3D matching problem, which is NP-
hard. In order to settle the 3D matching problem, this section
introduces the theory of hypergraph and conflict graph to
achieve close-to-optimal performance of the 3D matching
problem.
To begin with, some notations and definitions used in HGM
are given as follows [10].
(14) Definition 1 (Hypergraph): A hypergraph H is denoted by
H = (V, E H ), where V is the set of vertexes and E H is the
set of hyperedges. Disjoint independent sets D, R, K are the
vertex subset of V , and satisfy V = D ∪ R ∪ K. A hyperedge
e = (d, r, k) ∈ E H is a (d, k)-path, where d ∈ D, r ∈ R and
k ∈ K. In a weighted hypergraph, every hyperedge e ∈ E H
has a weight W (e).
Definition 2 (Conflict Graph): A conflict graph is a special
bipartite graph constructed from hypergraph H, denoted as
C = (U, E C ). Every vertexes u ∈ U corresponds to one
hyperedge e ∈ E H , and the weight of vertex u is W (e). Given
. any vertex u1 , u2 ∈ U , u1 and u2 correspond to hyperedges e1
and e2 , respectively. If e1 intersects e2 in at least one vertex,
u1 is adjacent to u2 as well, denoted as N (u1 ) = {u2 }.
In our scenario, we define the set of D-IoT, R-IoT, and
channel CH as D, R, K, respectively. Regarding any d ∈
D, r ∈ R, k ∈ K, the weight on the hyperedge e = (d, r, k) is
W (e) = W (d, r, k) = EEd,r,k?
, as is in (12). The purpose of
the HGM is to find a hyperedge subset A ⊆ E H , so that the
sum of the weights in the set A is maximized.
As show in Fig. 2(a), all the hyperedges of the original hy-
pergraph are given, including D ×R ×K hyperedges. Accord-
ing to the constraint conditions (6) and (10), by removing all
hyperedges that don’t satisfy the constraint from the original
hypergraph, a feasible hypergraph is formed, see Fig. 2(b). In
Fig. 2(c), we can see the neighbor relationship between UA and
UB , e.g., N (u2 ) = N (2, 2, 1) = {(2, 3, 2), (2, 3, 4), (3, 2, 1)}.
 Original Hypergraph Feasible Hypergraph Conflict Graph
apph
5 2 3 2
Algorithm 2: l-claw Local Search Algorithm.
1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 2 1
6 2 3 4
Input : Energy efficiency matrix WEE .
2 2 2 2 2 2
2 2 1 2 Output: Match result UA .
3 3 3 3 7 3 2 1
3 3
3 3 4 3
4 4 4 4 4 4 8 3 3 2
1 Transform the original hypergraph into a feasible
4 4 3 4
hypergraph.
...

...

...

...

...

...
9 4 4 4
K
D R D R K
Transform the feasible hypergraph into a conflict graph.

...
2

...
D-IoT R-IoT CH D-IoT R-IoT CH UA UB 3 Use Algorithm 3 to get the initial solution UA .
(a) Original Hypergraph (b) Feasible Hypergraph (c) Conflict Graph
4 Sort vertexes in UA in ascending order according to
Fig. 2. Original hypergraph, feasible hypergraph and conflict graph. vertex weight. Set i = 1.
5 UB = U − UA , and sort the vertexes in descending order
UA is an independent set in the conflict graph. Simul- according to vertex weight.
taneously, we define UB = U − UA , and UB contains 6 Set µ = 1.
all adjacent vertexes in the independent set UA . The HGM 7 while µ ≤ 3 do
consists of a greedy search initialization algorithm and a l- 8 Search for µ-claw in the conflict graph;
claw local search algorithm. The l-claw local search algorithm 9 if there exists µ-claw TLµ such that
2 2
can obtain a solution with an approximate ratio of (ε + 4)/2 WEE ([UA − N (TLµ , UA )] ∪ TLµ ) > WEE (UA ) then
in polynomial time for a 3D matching problem [18]. µ-claw 10 UA ← [UA − N (TLµ , UA )] ∪ TLµ , go to 4;
is an induced subgraph L of the conflict graph C, consisting 11 else
of an independent set TL containing µ vertexes, called talons. 12 µ=µ+1
And the central node is connected to all the talons, which 13 end
connects each vertex in TL . In the 3D matching problem, the 14 end
center vertex in the conflict graph is at most adjacent to three 15 if i < |UA | then
mutually independent vertexes. In Fig. 2(c), the vertex u2 is 16 i = i + 1, go to 5.
adjacent to three vertexes, but can only find 2-claw, because 17 end
u5 and u6 occupy the same elements and are not mutually
independent. The vertex u3 is adjacent to five vertexes, but
it can only find 3-claw. Looking for µ-claw is greedy, and Algorithm 3: Greedy Search Algorithm.
immediately joins TL when it encounters a vertex that is Input : Energy efficiency matrix WEE .
adjacent to the center node and not adjacent to other vertexes. Output: The selected initialization set UA .
The HGM whose pseudo-code are shown in Algorithm 2
1 UA ← ∅
can be separated into three divisions: i) firstly, calculating the
2 while UB − N (UA , UB ) 6= ∅ do
initial vertex set by using Algorithm 3, ii) determining the
3 Choose a vertex u ∈ {UB − N (UA , UB )} with the
neighboring vertexes of the initial vertex set, and iii) updating
maximum energy-efficient;
if any neighboring vertexes involve superior results. It should
4 UA ← UA ∪ u.
be noted that |X| in Algorithm 2 represents the number of
5 end
vertexes in X, and N (U, V ) represents the adjacent vertexes
2 6 Selected set UA consist of at most |UA | ≥ min(D, R, K)
of U in V , WEE (X) represents the sum of squared weight of
vertexes;
the vertexes in X.
The computation complexity of Algorithm 2 is analyzed
below. Line 3 can get at most π = min(D, R, K) initial 2
of the HGM in this article is O(|UB,max | ). Because the
solution with a computation complexity of O(π 2 ) by using principle of the IHM and MZPA is that converts the 3D match-
Algorithm 3. Correspondingly, the computation complexity of ing problem into a 2D matching problem, the computation
line 3 is O(π log π), where UA has been sorted in ascending complexity of the IHM is O(Π3 ), where Π = max(D, R, K),
order. The number of elements in UB is at most |UB,max |, the computation complexity of the MZPA is O(π 4 ). In a
then the computation complexity of sorting for line 4 is word, the computation complexity of the HGM will show an
O(|UB,max | · log |UB,max |). Line 5 updates UA by looking advantage over the IHM and MZPA.
2
for µ-claw and the computation complexity is O(|UB,max | ). We focus on the scenario within a macrocell, where a macro
Consequently, the computation complexity of Algorithm 2 BS and a micro BS locate in a 1000m×1000m square area.
2
is O(π log π + |UB,max | · log |UB,max | + |UB,max | ) = The macro BS is at coordinates (0, 0), and the micro BS is
2
O(|UB,max | ). at coordinates (−200, −200). R-IoT is randomly distributed
around the BS, and D-IoT is distributed in the cell edge area.
V. N UMBERICAL R ESULTS A ND P ERFORMANCE A NALYSIS
Fig. 3 shows a snapshot of the active device locations. The
In this section, we compare the HGM with the IHM [8] transmit power parameters in the simulation are listed together
and MZPA [9], and validate the performance of the HGM. with other parameters in Table II. Simulation examples apply
According to the above analysis, the computation complexity these parameters unless otherwise stated.

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 TABLE II 4.5
×10
4

S IMULATION PARAMETERS
4

Simulation Parameters Values [units] 3.5

Macrocell radius 500[m]

Energy efficiency (bit/J)

Microcell radius 200[m] 3

Path loss model for D2D links 148 + 40 · log(d[km]) 2.5

Path loss model for IoT links 128.1 + 37.6 · log(d[km])
Number of active D-IoTs 10 2

Number of active R-IoTs 9 1.5

Number of channels 8
SINR threshold -2[dB] 1

Noise power -175[dBm] 0.5

HGM
IHM
N-IoT transmit power 200[mW] MZPA
IoT silent power 10[mW] 0
-10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10
Channel division 5:3 SINR threshold (dB)
Fig. 4. Energy efficiency at different SINR thresholds.

500
×10 4
3

Energy efficiency (bit/J)

400
2.5

300 2

1.5
landmark
200
HGM
1 IHM
MZPA
100
0.5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
(a) The number of D-IoT (R-IoT: 9, Channel: 8)
0
×10 4
3
-100

Energy efficiency (bit/J)

2.5 landmark
-200 2

1.5
-300
eNB HGM
1 IHM
HeNB MZPA
-400
R-IoT 0.5
D-IoT 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
(b) The number of R-IoT (D-IoT: 10, Channel: 8)
-500
-500 -400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400 500
4
×10
2.8
Energy efficiency (bit/J)

Fig. 3. The device location under the macro BS and the micro BS includes 2.6

2.4
10 active D-IoTs, 9 active R-IoTs and 8 channels. 2.2

2 landmark
1.8 HGM
IHM
Fig. 4 shows the relationship between the total energy 1.6

1.4
MZPA

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

efficiency and the accepted SINR threshold. The results show (c) The number of channel (D-IoT: 10, R-IoT: 9)

that the performance of proposed HGM used in this paper
achieves 8.41% and 59.85% higher than IHM and MZPA
respectively. As can be seen from the Fig. 4, the total energy
efficiency is reduced as the SINR threshold increased. There
are two reasons: firstly, because of the increase in the SINR
threshold, the number of communicable d → r → b links
is reduced, secondly, when transmit power of the D-IoT
increases, and the energy efficiency of each candidate link
decreases. It can be noted that the drop in energy efficiency
decelerate when the SINR threshold is greater than 6 dB. For
the reason that the quality of the remaining communicable
links is favorable, and it will not be interrupted immediately
while SINR threshold increasing.
Fig. 5 shows the influence of different numbers of active
D-IoTs, active R-IoTs, and channels on the total energy
efficiency. It is not difficult to see that the enhancement in the
number of D-IoT, R-IoT and channel will increase the total
energy efficiency. In addition, when the number of devices
or channels raise, the total energy efficiency will slow down.
The growth rate of energy efficiency has a significant turning
at the minimum number of devices and channels remaining in
the system. In Fig. 5(a), when the number of D-IoTs is not
greater than 8, the total energy efficiency increases rapidly.
While observing Fig. 5(b), the number of R-IoT is equal to
8, the curve also shows a significant turning point. Finally,
Fig. 5. The number of D-IoTs, R-IoTs, and channels vs. Total energy
efficiency.
when the channel in Fig. 5(c) exceeds 9, the curve hardly
rises. This is because the maximum number of matches in
the 3D matching problem is limited by the smallest number
in the three dimensions. Therefore, when the number of one
dimension corresponding to the abscissa is not greater than
the minimum number in the other two dimensions, the total
energy efficiency grows rapidly; otherwise, the total energy
efficiency grows slowly.
Fig. 6 depicts the impact of N-IoT’s transmit power on
the total energy efficiency. On the one hand, increasing the
transmit power of N-IoT will relax the constraint of the D-
IoT’s transmit power. On the other hand, an enhancement
in the transmit power of N-IoT will inevitably increase the
interference to R-IoTs. However, as show in Fig. 6, we can see
that in the range of 100-500 mW, the interference caused by N-
IoT is the major reason that affects the total energy efficiency.
In addition, as shown in Fig. 6, the average transmit power of
D-IoT increases when the total energy efficiency declines.
While maintaining the number of channels in the system,
Fig. 7 shows the difference on the total energy efficiency,
because of the different ratio of the available channels. In the
abscissa of the Fig. 7, for example, 5 indicates the amount

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 4.5
104
4 EE(IHM)
3.5
Energy efficient (bit/J)
3
2.5
2 [2] J. Zhou, R. Q. Hu, and Y. Qian, “Scalable distributed communication
1.5
1
0.5
100 200
Fig. 6. The transmit power of N-IoT vs. Energy efficiency and average
transmit power of D-IoT.
×10 4
3 level game for relay-based throughput enhancement via d2d commu-
2.5
Energy efficiency (bit/J)
2
1.5
1 proach,” Ad Hoc Networks, vol. 56, pp. 96–108, 2017.
0.5
0
3:5 4:4
Channel split ratio (The channel of eNB vs. HeNB)
Fig. 7. Channel split ratio vs. Energy efficiency.
of channels available to the macro BS, and 3 indicates the
amount of channels available to the micro BS. According to
the result in Fig. 7, when macro BS utilize 6 channels, micro
BS utilize the remaining 2 channels, the total energy efficiency
achieves a maximum value. Furthermore, the maximum value
of the three algorithms appears at the same position on the
abscissa.
We observe from the simulation results that the total energy
efficiency achieved by HGM is slightly higher than IHM
and much higher than MZPA. Fig. 4 to 7 illustrate different
parameter changing also effect the total energy efficiency of
the network.
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, in order to enhance the connectivity of IoT
devices with inferior channel conditions to the BS, this paper
studies a joint optimization problem of relay selection, channel
allocation, and power control in the mMTC scenario. We
formulate the problem as a MIP problem involving a NFP
problem and a user-relay-channel matching problem. Then
a two-stage approach including the Dinkelbach method and
the HGM is proposed to solve the MIP problem. Finally, we
compare the HGM algorithm used in this paper with IHM and
MZPA. Based on complexity analysis, it is obvious that HGM
has lower computational complexity compared with IHM and
MZPA. Simulation results show that the total energy efficiency
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140
achieved by the HGM performs 8.41% and 59.85% higher than
EE(HGM) IHM and MZPA respectively.
120
Average transmit power of D-IoT (mW)
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