IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 56, NO.
2, MARCH 2007
Multiobjective Distributed Power Control Algorithm
for CDMA Wireless Communication Systems
Mohammed Elmusrati, Member, IEEE, Riku Jäntti, Member, IEEE, and Heikki N. Koivo, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—Although power control has been explored since the
early 1990s, there still remains the need for further research. Most
of the algorithms so far consider either the problem of minimizing
the sum of transmitted power under quality of service (QoS)
constraints given in terms of minimum signal-to-interference-plus-
noise ratio (SINR) in a static channel or the problem of mit-
igating fast fading in a single dynamic link. In this paper, we
suggest a new approach to the power control by treating the
QoS requirement as another objective for the power control and
a fully distributed method for solving the multiobjective power
optimization problem. The obtained solution is parameterized so
that a tradeoff can be made between power consumption and QoS.
In the limit case, when only QoS is weighted, the algorithm reduces
to the well-known distributed power control algorithm (IEEE
Trans. Commun., vol. 42, no. 2/3/4, pt. 1, Feb./Mar./Apr. 1994).
In the other limit, the algorithm reduces to transmission with
fixed minimum power. The convergence properties of the proposed
algorithm are studied both theoretically and with numerical sim-
ulations. Although we only consider SINR and power sum, our
algorithm could be easily modified to take other objectives, such
as throughput, into account.
Index Terms—CDMA, multi-objective optimization, power con-
trol, radio resource management.
I. I NTRODUCTION
P OWER control is essential in interference-limited capac-
ity communication systems such as the direct-sequence
code-division multiple access (DS-CDMA). The power control
regulates transmitted powers of the users to be as close to
optimum as possible. The optimum transmission power is the
minimum power needed to achieve some target quality of ser-
vice (QoS) level to users, which is usually expressed in terms of
signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). The power con-
trol mitigates the well-known near–far problem in DS-CDMA
systems, which results in enhancing the system capacity and
performance [2]. Moreover, power control prolongs the oper-
ation time of the battery of mobile terminals and reduces the
Manuscript received February 23, 2004; revised October 29, 2005
and January 31, 2006. The review of this paper was coordinated by
Prof. C.-J. Chang.
M. Elmusrati was with the Department of Electrical and Engineering,
Garyounis University, Benghazi, Libya. He is now with the Department of
Computer Science, University of Vassa, 65101 Vaasa, Finland, and also with
the Control Engineering Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, 02015
Espoo, Finland.
R. Jäntti is with the Department of Computer Science, University of Vaasa,
65101 Vaasa, Finland, and also with the Control Engineering Laboratory,
Helsinki University of Technology, 02015 Espoo, Finland.
H. N. Koivo is with the Control Engineering Laboratory, Helsinki University
of Technology, 02015 Espoo, Finland.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TVT.2006.889565
0018-9545/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE
779
interference to other (co)cross-channel communication systems
by minimizing the transmitted powers. For this and other rea-
sons, the power control problem has been receiving a lot of
attention in the wireless communication literature. Although the
power control problem is well understood, there still remain
many related problems that are under active research such as
speeding up the convergence of power control algorithms, de-
termining the optimum implementation of the distributed power
control (DPC), designing DPC without snapshot assumption
(i.e., fixed channel gains), and joining the power control with
other resource control methods such as rate control and spatial
processing.
It can be shown that the minimum transmitted power vector,
which is required to achieve the target SINR to users, is the
solution of a system of linear equations. Direct solution of
this equation system is called centralized power control, and it
requires full knowledge of the channel gains between all active
transmitters and receivers. This required knowledge makes the
centralized power control impractical method. There are many
iterative algorithms to solve the power control problem in
distributed fashion; see, e.g., [1]–[11]. The commonly used
methodology in the literature of DPC is the so-called snapshot
analysis: The system parameters such as channel gains and
noise levels of users are assumed to be fixed or slowly changing
compared to the rate at which power updates can be performed.
This assumption is required to allow the DPC to converge
to the solution of the centralized power control algorithm. In
practice, however, the link gains of mobile channels have fast
and random fluctuations that occur in the same time scale as
power can be updated. These characteristics of mobile channels
reduce the significance of the snapshot convergence property of
the power control algorithms. The work in [3] and [4] does not
assume the snapshot analysis, but the resultant power control
algorithm is relatively difficult to implement in a very limited
processing power handset.
The QoS constraint usually is not sharp; rather, it has some
margin in which the QoS remains acceptable. To be more
specific, the QoS is accepted if it falls within a set that is lower
limited by the minimum accepted QoS and upper limited by
the supremum QoS. The minimum accepted QoS is the lowest
acceptable connection quality; any level below that is unaccept-
able. The supremum QoS is defined as the upper bound for the
QoS. The preferred power control is that one that can achieve
an accepted QoS level (i.e., a level that is between minimum and
supremum QoS levels) very fast at low power consumption. Our
proposed power control algorithm fast achieves an accepted
QoS level at very low power consumption. In this paper, we
will focus on the uplink power control case. We assume that the
780 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 56, NO. 2, MARCH 2007

SINR of each user can be estimated accurately and is available

for the power controller. A method to estimate the SINR at the
handset is proposed, e.g., in [11]. This estimation of the SINR
is based only on 1-bit feedback channel.
The proposed algorithm in this paper aims to achieve two
objectives by applying the multiobjective (MO) optimization
method. The first objective is to minimize the transmitted
power, and the second objective is to achieve an accepted
QoS level in terms of SINR. It is clear that both objectives are
generally conflicted. The typical way to deal with conflicted
objectives is to use MO optimization. The same objective has
been considered, e.g., in [12]. The difference between the MO
optimization problem suggested here and the joint optimization
considered, e.g., in [12], is the number of free parameters. In
joint optimization, one common objective is optimized with
respect to several resources such as transmit power and antenna
beam vector weights. In some cases, the original optimization
problem can be divided into subproblems that are then solved
Fig. 1. Convergence region for the MODPC algorithm.
with respect to one variable at a time. In MO optimization, the
situation is different; several possibly conflicting objectives are
nected. We are usually interested in one solution of the Pareto
to be optimized with respect to only a single resource or, in
optimal set. This solution is selected by a decision maker. There
our case, transmit power. Thus, although the objectives of this
are different techniques to solve the MO optimization problems.
paper coincide with the subobjectives of [12], the problems are
We adopted the method of “Weighted Metrics.” If the desired
quite different.
solution of the objectives is known in advance (for example, the
This paper is organized as follows: The derived MO power
target SINR), then problem (1) can be rewritten as follows:
control algorithm is presented in Section II. The convergence
analysis is discussed in Section III. Section IV shows numerical m  p1
   p
results. Finally, conclusions are given in Section V. Appendix I min λi fi (x) − zi∗ 
contains the derivation of the multiobjective distributed power i=1
control (MODPC) algorithm, Appendix II recapitulates the subject to x ∈ S (2)
necessary tools for convergence analysis, and Appendixes III
and IV contain the proofs of stated propositions. where 1 ≤ p ≤ ∞, zi∗ is the desired solution of the objective i,
and the tradeoff factors
II. MODPC A LGORITHM m

The MO optimization approach is a technique that optimizes λi ≥ 0, ∀i = 1, . . . , m and λi = 1.
different and usually conflicted objectives. In the MO opti- i=1

mization problem, we have a set of objective functions; each
is a function of a decision vector [13]. It can be represented
mathematically as follows:


min f1 (x), f2 (x), . . . , fm (x)
subject to x ∈ S (1)
where we have m(≥ 2) objective functions fi : n → , x is
the decision vector belonging to a (nonempty) feasible region
(set) S, which is a subset of the decision variable space n .
The function min means that we minimize all the objectives
simultaneously. The objectives are usually conflicted and pos-
sibly incommensurable. Thus, there is no single solution that
minimizes all objectives simultaneously. The MO optimization
provides different optimal solutions at different senses. They
are called nondominated or Pareto optimal solutions. A decision
vector x∗ ∈ S is Pareto optimal if there does not exist another
decision vector x ∈ S such that fi (x) ≤ fi (x∗ ) for all i =
1, 2, . . . , m and fj (x) < fj (x∗ ) for at least one index j [13],
[14]. The “Pareto optimal set” is the set of all possible Pareto
optimal solutions. This set can be nonconvex and noncon-
Other methods to handle the MO optimization problems can be
found in [13] and [14].
In the next formulation, the power control problem has been
represented by two objectives given as follows: 1) minimizing
the transmitted power and 2) keeping the SINR as close as pos-
sible to the supremum SINR. After convergence, the achieved
SINR is the target SINR if it falls inside the target set, i.e., larger
than the minimum accepted SINR and less than or equal to the
supremum SINR. Fig. 1 explains this idea for two users’ case.
The continuous lines correspond to the power values where the
SINR is equal to the minimum allowed level, while the dashed
lines correspond to power values that achieve the supremum
SINR level. The shadowed area contains the accepted power
vectors at a certain time. The preceding objectives could be
interpreted mathematically for user i by the following error
function:
 
ei (t) = λi,1 |Pi (t) − Pmin | + λi,2 Γi (t) − Γsup
i
 (3)
where 0 ≤ λi,1 ≤ 1 and λi,2 = 1 − λi,1 are the tradeoff factors,
Γsup
i is the supremum SINR, Pmin is the minimum transmitted
ELMUSRATI et al.: MODPC ALGORITHM FOR CDMA WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS 781

taps. By solving the optimization problem (5) for one tap (see
Appendix I for detailed derivations), we obtain the following
power control algorithm:

λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsup

i
Pi (t) = Pi (t − 1)
λi,1 Pi (t − 1) + λi,2 Γi (t − 1)
i = 1, . . . , Q; t = 1, 2, . . . . (7)

In practice, the transmitter power is bounded above by some

maximum value Pmax determined by the properties of the
Fig. 2. Autoregressive model of power control. power amplifier of the handset. It is interesting to observe that if
λi,1 > 0, then the transmitted power of the MODPC algorithm
power that can be handled by the mobile station, and Γi (t) is (7) is naturally upper bounded such as
the SINR of user i at time slot t, which is given by
λi,2 sup
Pi (t)Gii (t) Pi (t) < Pmin + Γ = Psup , i = 1, . . . , Q. (8)
Γi (t) = , i = 1, . . . , Q (4) λi,1 i

Q
Pj (t)Gij (t) + δ(t) Thus, we can conclude that Pmax ≥ Psup , i.e., the power
j=1
j
=i constraint cannot be violated, as long as
where Gij (t) is the channel gain between user j and receiver λi,2 Pmax − Pmin
i, Q is the number of active users at time slot t, and δ(t) is ≤ (9)
λi,1 Γsup
i
the average additive noise power at time slot t. Without loss
of generality, it has been assumed that user i is assigned to Since λi,2 = 1 − λi,1 , the preceding equation can be written in
base station i. We assume that the transmitted data of user i terms of λi,1 as
is correctly decoded at the receiver if the received SINR is
greater than some minimum value Γi,min . An interpretation for Γsup
i
λi,1 ≥ . (10)
the supremum SINR is that it is the minimum tolerable SINR Γsup
i + Pmax − Pmin
determined by the utilized coding and modulation scheme +
In the general case, we need to augment the MODPC
SINR margin to cope with fast fading.
algorithm to take the maximum power constraint into account
The obtained power control from minimizing the error
as follows:
function (3) is able to track the supremum SINR and with a


penalty of using a large power. The error function (3) can be λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsup
i
Pi (t) = min Pmax , Pi (t − 1)
extended to include other objectives such as maximizing the λi,1 Pi (t − 1) + λi,2 Γi (t − 1)
throughput [16].
i = 1, . . . , Q; t = 1, 2, . . . . (11)
To generalize the optimization over all users for time window
of N slots, we define the following optimization problem: Some interesting observations of the MODPC algorithm (7)
Find the power vector P = [P1 , P2 , . . . , PQ ] (P denotes the are that the MODPC algorithm is a nonlinear algorithm. Its
transpose of vector P) that minimizes of the following cost behavior is determined by the values of the tradeoff factors
function: λi . It requires no extra measurements other than those used
 Q N in conventional algorithms [1]–[10]. At λi,1 = 0 and λi,2 =

N −t 2
J(P) = γ ei (t) , t = 1, . . . , N (5) 1 − λi,1 = 1, the first objective in (3) is relaxed, and only the
i=1 t=1 second objective is considered. It is interesting to observe that
in this case, the MODPC algorithm becomes the very well
where γ is an adaptation factor (also called forgetting factor)
known DPC algorithm [1], which is
and N is the number of time slots in the time window. If
the forgetting factor is not zero, then it means that the next Γsup
i
transmitted power will depend on all the accumulated past Pi (t) = Pi (t − 1). (12)
Γi (t − 1)
history of the transmitted powers.
Suppose further that power Pi (t) is described by an autore- Hence, we note that the DPC algorithm is a special case of the
gressive model, as shown in Fig. 2 [17]. The transmitted power MODPC algorithm. At the other extreme case where λi,1 = 1
can be given as and λi,2 = 0, the handset transmits at the minimum power,
n
regardless of the SINR situation (i.e., no power control). The
 proper values of tradeoff factors, which could be adaptive, can
Pi (t) = wi (k)Pi (t − k) = wi Xi (t) (6)
greatly enhance the performance of the algorithm, depending
k=1
on the scenario.
where wi = [wi (1), . . . , wi (n)] is the power adaptation weight In terms of MO optimization, the proper values of the trade-
vector, Xi (t) = [Pi (t − 1), . . . , Pi (t − n)] contains known off factors for a certain network situation are selected by the de-
old values of the transmitted power, and n is the number of cision maker, who determines the optimum point from a Pareto
782 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 56, NO. 2, MARCH 2007

optimal set. A simple but efficient decision rule can be derived Definition 1: The network configuration is said to be “feasi-
from the steady-state behavior of the proposed algorithm: At ble” if there exists a power vector P∗ ∈ {P : 0 ≤ P ≤ Pmax }
steady state (i.e., Pi (t + 1) = Pi (t) = Piss ), (7) results in the such that Γi ≥ Γi,min , i = 1, . . . , Q.
steady-state SINR of user i(Γss i ), which is given by Definition 2: The maximum achievable SINR µ∗ is de-
fined as
sup λi,1
Γss
i = Γi − (P ss − Pmin ) (13) µ∗ = max min Γi .
λi,2 i P≥0 i=1,...,Q
(16)

when λi,2 > 0. The case in which λi,2 = 0 denotes fixed
transmission powers, and its steady-state analysis is omitted
as trivial.
One of the key features of the MODPC algorithm can be
observed in the steady-state solution given in (13). It is clear
that the steady-state SINR equals the supremum SINR when the
steady-state power equals the minimum power. The penalty of
using any excessive power is a reduction in steady-state SINR.
This could be interpreted as dynamically changing SINR mar-
gin. If the system is lightly loaded, a large margin could be used,
and when the load increases, the SINR margin is decreased to
include more users. This behavior of MODPC resembles the
gradual removal concept suggested by Yates et al. [22].
The decision maker should choose the tradeoff factors λi,1
and λi,2 so that all users can achieve at least the minimum
acceptable SINR level. In the worst-case situation, the steady-
state power is the maximum allowed power Pmax , which is
determined by the power amplifier of the handset. A robust
way to find the tradeoff factors values is to consider the worst
case Piss = Pmax . It should be noted that proposing the tradeoff
factors by this method is not necessarily optimum but gives an
initial guess. From (13) and λi,1 + λi,2 = 1, the values of trade-
off factors can now be solved to yield (assuming Pmin = 0)
Pmax Γsup
i −Γi,min
λi,2 = , λi,1 = .
Pmax +Γsup
i −Γi,min Pmax +Γsup
i −Γi,min
(14)
Let us consider the DS-CDMA case, where the relationship
between the target SINR and the target Eb /I0 is given (in
decibel scale) by
Γ̂sup
i = ρsup
i −Ω (15)
where ρsupi is the supremum bit-energy-to-noise-power-
spectral-density ratio in decibels and Ω is the processing gain
in decibels. As typical values in voice applications, ρsupi = k=1
The convergence analysis of the MODPC algorithm is dis-
cussed in the next propositions.
Proposition 1: For static channels and for any P (0) > 0, the
MODPC algorithm (7) converges to a unique fixed point. This
fixed point is determined by the values of the tradeoff factors
explained in the previous section.
The proof is given in Appendix III.
Proposition 2: For a noiseless feasible system, static chan-
nels with P (0) > 0, and proper values of tradeoff factors, the
MODPC algorithm converges to the SINR balance, i.e.,
lim P(t) = P∗
t→∞
lim Γi (t) = µ∗ ∀i = 1, 2, . . . , Q (17)
t→∞
where µ∗ is the maximum achievable SINR, and P∗ is the cor-
responding eigenvector of the normalized channel gain matrix
F = [fij ], fij = Gij /Gii for i = j and fii = 0∀i [2].
See Appendix IV for the proof.
IV. MODPC A LGORITHM W ITH Q UANTIZED SINR
Perfect estimation of the mobile’s SINR at the base station
is assumed in the MODPC algorithm. In the existing cellular
communication system, only a quantized version of the SINR
is available at the mobile station. In the worst case, only a 1-bit
quantizer is used to command the mobile to step up/down its
transmitted power. An estimation method for the SINR based
on the 1-bit command is presented in [11]. In this section, we
join this estimation method with the MODPC algorithm to see
the quantization error effects on the algorithm. It can be shown
from [11] than the estimated SINR at the mobile station is
given by
 t−1
sup

Γ̃i (t) = Γ − δi νi (t − k)ci (t, k) + νi (t)

6 dB, Ω = 24 dB, and then Γ̂sup i = −18 dB. If the margin t = 0, 1, . . . ; i = 1, . . . , Q (18)
is 3 dB and Pmax = 1, then from (14), λi,1 ∼ = 0.01, and νi (t) = sign (Γsup − Γi (t)) EPC,i (t) (19)
λi,2 ∼
= 0.99. As stated before, the system designer decides i
k−1
the optimum values of the tradeoff factors based on targeted
objectives. The tradeoff factors can be adapted to achieve
certain time-varying objectives. The convergence properties of
the MODPC algorithm are discussed in Section III.
III. C ONVERGENCE A NALYSIS OF THE
MODPC A LGORITHM
Before proceeding to the convergence analysis, we consider
the following definitions:
1 
ci (t, k) = [1 + νi (t − n)νi (t − n − 1)] (20)
2k n=0
where EPC,i (t) is 1 with probability PPCE,i (t) and −1 with
probability 1 − PPCE,i (t). PPCE,i (t) is the probability of bit er-
ror in power control command transmission at time t. The same
MODPC algorithm can be used with estimated SINR given in
(18) as with perfect SINR. We call the new algorithm as MO
totally DPC (MOTDPC) algorithm. The convergence property
of the MOTDPC algorithm is discussed in the next corollary.
ELMUSRATI et al.: MODPC ALGORITHM FOR CDMA WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS 783

TABLE I
AVERAGE TRANSMITTED POWER IN DECIBEL METERS

Corollary 1: For static channels and for any P (0) > 0, the
MOTDPC algorithm converges to a unique fixed point.
The proof is given in Appendix V.

V. N UMERICAL R ESULTS
In this section, we compare the convergence properties
MODPC with DPC [1], Foschini’s and Miljanic’s algorithm
(FMA) [6], and the second-order power control (SOPC) algo-
rithm [10]. We compare the algorithms in terms of convergence Fig. 3. Power path trajectories of two users using DPC and MODPC.
speed, outage probability, and power consumption. The com-
parisons are carried out for both static and dynamic channels.
In each channel scenario, we assumed 120 users uniformly
distributed in an area of 4 km2 with four base stations. The base
stations are regularly distributed, i.e., at (0.5,0.5), (0.5,1.5),
(1.5,0.5), and (1.5,1.5) km. Perfect handover is assumed, where
each user is assigned to the base station with the best instanta-
neous link quality. The maximum transmit power is normalized
to 30 dBm. An additive white Gaussian noise is assumed with
zero mean and an average power of −90 dBm. The radio link
gain is modeled as a product of three variables: 1) the large-
scale propagation loss that depends on the distance between the
mobile terminal and the base station; 2) lognormal shadowing
with a mean of 0 dB and a standard deviation of 5 dB; and
3) Rayleigh-distributed multipath fading generated by a cor-
related process [20]. In the dynamic scenario, the speed of
the users is 30 km/h. The carrier frequency is 2 GHz. In the
snapshot analysis, the channel gain of each user is set at a fixed
value during the simulation.
The tradeoff factors for the MODPC algorithm has been set Fig. 4. Power convergence differences in DPC and MODPC.
for all users to λi,1 = 0.01 and λi,2 = 0.99. In the dynamic
scenario, the same values of the tradeoff factors are used. faster toward the fixed point than that of the DPC algorithm.
The algorithms are compared in terms of the error norm and It is clear that the MODPC algorithm converges faster than
the outage percentage. The error is defined as the difference the DPC algorithm to reach the feasible region. The MODPC
between the actual transmitted power vector generated by the algorithm requires less number of iterations than other conven-
power control algorithm and the optimum power vector. The tional algorithms to converge to the adequate solution. It can be
optimum power vector is the solution of the centralized power explained, as indicated by (3) and (13), that there is a penalty in
control algorithm. The outage is the percentage of users that using the power. Fig. 3 illustrates this property of the MODPC
do not achieve the minimum tolerable SINR level. We follow algorithm. The convergence analysis in [18] showed that the
the approach taken, e.g., in [10], and consider outage in each Hessian matrix associated with the MODPC scheme had a
time slot instead of just observing the steady-state behavior. smaller spectral radius than the corresponding matrix for DPC.
The supremum SINR is set to −18 dB for all users. Note that This result indicates that MODPC converges asymptotically
SINR here denotes the SINR before dispreading. The minimum faster than DPC. This observation is also supported by our
allowed SINR has been set to 3 dB lower than the supremum simulation results here. It is, however, notable that the two
SINR. For comparison purposes, Table I lists the average algorithms are not converging to the same point. While DPC
transmitted power of all users in decibel meters of each power is converging toward Γsupi , MODPC is aiming to some lower
control algorithm for static and dynamic scenarios. SINR between Γi,min and Γsup i . This difference is clarified in
Fig. 3 shows the convergence behavior of the MODPC and Fig. 4. Fig. 4 shows the initial powers for both algorithms at
DPC algorithms for two users. The figure depicts that the power point (1); then, MODPC converges to point (2), while DPC
path trajectory of the MODPC algorithm is converging much converges to point (3), which achieves Γsupi .
784
Fig. 5. Comparison between different power control algorithms in terms of
error and outage for the static-channel scenario.
Fig. 6. Achieved SINR (in decibels) for the best and worst users.
Fig. 5 shows comparisons of the error norm of the average
outage percentage for the 120 users using MODPC, DPC,
FMA, and SOPC algorithms for the static-channel case. It is
clear in this scenario that the MODPC algorithm outperforms
other algorithms in terms of power convergence speed and
outage convergence speed. Moreover, the average consumption
power of the MODPC algorithm is considerably less than those
of other simulated algorithms, as indicated by Table I. For
example, the average transmitted power of MODPC is lower
than that of DPC by less than 4 dB. That means less than half of
the power (on the average) is needed for the MODPC algorithm
to achieve the target QoS. Comparing the MODPC algorithm
with other algorithms, it is clear that less power is consumed
by the MODPC algorithm. Fig. 6 shows the achieved SINR for
the best and worst users using the MODPC algorithm. It is clear
that the aim is to be in the convergence region between Γi,min
and Γsup
i .
Dynamical channels with fast and slow fading are assumed
in the second scenario. In this scenario, the comparison results
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 56, NO. 2, MARCH 2007
Fig. 7. Comparison between different power control algorithms in terms of
error and outage for the dynamic-channel scenario.
Fig. 8. Transmitted power versus time slots of different power control
algorithms.
are quite similar in their trend as in the first scenario, as shown
in Fig. 7. The MODPC still outperforms the other algorithms
in terms of optimum power tracking capability in terms of
error norm and QoS tracing capability in terms of outage. The
average power consumption of MODPC is less than that of
other algorithms, as shown in Table I. Since this scenario is
for a dynamic channel, it is worth investigating the fluctuations
of the transmitted power of one user and how the algorithms
can track the optimum power. Fig. 8 depicts a sample of the
transmitted power of an arbitrarily selected user using optimal
(centralized), DPC, FMA, and MODPC algorithms. The result
SOPC algorithm is omitted to enhance the visibility of the
graphs because it contains high overshoots (the transmitted
power falls close to zero at iteration 19). Fig. 8 indicates that
the MODPC algorithm can track the variations of the channel
better than other simulated algorithms. This result indicates
that the MODPC algorithm can react faster to changes in
interference than the other algorithms. Finally, the convergence
ELMUSRATI et al.: MODPC ALGORITHM FOR CDMA WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS 785

The error function can be modified such as

ei (t) = λi,1 (Pi (t) − Pmin ) + λ̂i,2 (t) (Γi (t) − Γsup )
t = 0, 1, . . . (21)

where λ̂i,2 (t) = sign(Γi (t) − Γsup )λi,2 ; the sign function is
defined as

+1, x ≥ 0
sign(x) = (22)
−1, x < 0.

Suppose further that power Pi (t) is described by a linear

autoregressive model, as shown in Fig. 2 [17]. The transmitted
power is
n

Pi (t) = wi (k)Pi (t − k) = w i Xi (t), t = 0, 1, . . .
k=1
(23)
Fig. 9. Convergence behavior in terms of error norm and outage for MOTDPC
with different power control command error levels. where
 
wi = wi (1) · · · wi (n) , Xi (t) = Pi (t − 1) · · · Pi (t − n) .
behavior of the MOTDPC with estimated SINR and different (24)
power control command errors is shown in Fig. 9. The figure
Observe that Xi (t) contains known measured values of the
indicates that MOTDPC achieves close to ideal performance
transmitted power.
even if 1-bit feedback is used instead of perfect SINR values.
Substitute (23) into (21) and (4). Then, error ei (t) can be
The performance remains tolerable even with up to 20% power
written as
control bit error rate.
 
ei (t) = λi,1 w i Xi (t) − Pmin
 
VI. C ONCLUSION Gii (t)w i Xi (t)
+λ̂i,2 (t) − Γsup . (25)
Ii (t)
In this paper, we suggested a novel DPC algorithm that is
based on the MO optimization method. We considered two Denote
objectives: 1) QoS in terms of SINR and 2) power consumption.  
It should be noted, however, that the suggested power control Gii (t)
αt := λi,1 + λ̂i,2 (t) . (26)
scheme could be easily extended to take other objectives, such Ii (t)
as throughput, into account. The algorithm is parameterized so
Using this in (25), ei (t) becomes
that the designer can make a tradeoff between QoS and power
consumption. A simple guideline is provided for the choice of
ei (t) = αt w i Xi (t) − λi,1 Pmin − λ̂i,2 (t)Γsup . (27)
these parameters such that the given QoS constraints can be
met. In a snapshot case, the algorithm was proven to converge, From (5) and (25), a necessary condition for the minimum is
starting from an arbitrary initial value. The simulation results given as follows for all i = 1, . . . , Q:
indicated that the suggested MODPC algorithm outperformed
N

the DPC, FMA, and SOPC algorithms in convergence speed ∂ei (t)
and was able to track the QoS target better in the case of a 2 γ N −t ei (t) = 0. (28)
t=1
∂w
fading channel. The proposed algorithm has also been modified
to adopt estimated SINR (based on the up/down power control From (27)
command) instead of the ideal values. The modified method
is called the MOTDPC algorithm. It has been proven that in ∂ei (t)
= αt X i (t). (29)
the snapshot case, the power vector sequence generated by the ∂w
MOTDPC algorithm converges, starting from an arbitrary ini-
Substituting (27) and (29) into (28), we obtain
tial value. The simulations show that the MOTDPC converges
even in case of power control command errors. N
 ∂ei (t)
γ N −t ei (t)
t=1
∂w
A PPENDIX I N

D ERIVATION OF MODPC A LGORITHM = γ N −t (αt w i Xi (t) − λi,1 Pmin − λi,2 Γsup ) αt X i (t)
The absolute function of the first term in (3) is not needed be- t=1

cause the transmitted power cannot be less than the minimum. = 0. (30)
786 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 56, NO. 2, MARCH 2007

Solving for wi To overcome these problems, only the positive values of λ̂i,2 (t)
 N
 are considered, i.e., λ̂i,2 (t) = λi,2 . This simplification has con-
  
γ N −t αt2 Xi (t)X i (t) wi siderably reduced the complexity of the MODPC algorithm
t=1 with the price of slight degradation in the convergence speed.
N The MODPC algorithm becomes

= γ N −t αt (λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsup ) Xi (t) (31) λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsup
t=1 Pi (t) = Pi (t − 1)
λi,1 Pi (t − 1) + λi,2 Γi (t − 1)
or i = 1, . . . , Q; t = 1, 2, . . . . (40)
wi (N ) = R−1
xx (N )Rx (N ), i = 1, . . . , Q (32)
A PPENDIX II
where I MPORTANT T HEORIES FOR C ONVERGENCE A NALYSIS
N
 In this Appendix, we introduce the definition of the standard
Rxx (N ) := γ N −t αt2 Xi (t)X i (t) (33)
power control algorithm as well as the two theorems related
t=1
to it, as given in [19]. The transmitted power of user i can be
N
   described mathematically as
Rx (N ) := γ N −t αt λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsup Xi (t). (34)
t=1
Pi (t) = Ψi (P(t − 1), Γi (t)) (41)
Equations (32)–(34) are well known from least squares tech-
where Ψ(•) is the interference function, and Γi (t) is the SINR
niques. Equation (32) can be solved using the Recursive Least
of user i at time slot t.
Square method. To avoid the matrix inversion, Rxx (N ) may be
The interference function Ψ(•) is called “standard” when
computed recursively as
the following properties are satisfied for all nonnegative power
2
Rxx (N ) = γRxx (N − 1) + αN Xi (N )X i (N ). (35) vector P [19]:
• positivity, i.e., Ψi (P(t), Γi (t)) > 0;
Since the inverse of Rxx (N ) is needed, we can use the matrix • monotonicity, i.e., if P ≥ P , then Ψi (P(t), Γi (t)) ≥
inverse lemma to obtain [21] Ψi (P i (t), Γi (t)) > 0;
 • scalability, i.e., for all α > 1, αΨi (P(t), Γi (t)) >
−1 1 Ψi (αP(t), Γi (t)).
Rxx (N ) = R−1
xx (N − 1)
γ
A power control algorithm of form (38) is called standard if
R−1 2  −1 the utilized mapping Ψ(•) is the standard interference function.
xx (N − 1)αN Xi (N )X i (N )Rxx (N − 1)
− 2 X (N )R−1 (N − 1)X (N ) . (36) Standard power control algorithms have the two following
γ + αN i xx i
properties.
In addition, Rx (N ) can be computed recursively as
  Theorem 1 [19, Th. 1]
Rx (N ) = γRx (N − 1) + αN λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsup Xi (N ).
(37) For a standard power control algorithm, solution of (41) has
a unique fixed point.
The power control algorithm is easy to implement and is
also computationally light to be applicable for existing wireless
Theorem 2 [19, Th. 2]
communication systems. Next, the simplest case, where n = 1
in (23) and γ = 0, is considered. Solving (32), we obtain If Ψ(•) is feasible, then for any initial power vector P o , the
standard power control algorithm converges to a unique fixed
λi,1 Pmin + λ̂i,2 (t)Γsup point P∗ .
wi (t) =
λi,1 Pi (t − 1) + λ̂i,2 (t)Γi (t − 1)
i = 1, . . . , Q; t = 1, 2, . . . . (38) A PPENDIX III
P ROOF OF P ROPOSITION 1
From (23), the transmitted power of user i at time slot t is
given by We will prove that the MODPC algorithm is a standard
power control algorithm discussed in Appendix II; then, by
λi,1 Pmin + λ̂i,2 (t)Γsup Theorems 1 and 2, the MODPC algorithm converges to a unique
Pi (t) = Pi (t − 1)
λi,1 Pi (t − 1) + λ̂i,2 (t)Γi (t − 1) fixed point. The interference function Ψi (P) of the MODPC
algorithm is given by
i = 1, . . . , Q; t = 1, 2, . . . . (39)
λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsup
i
Due to the sharp changes in the λ̂i,2 (t) sign, the transmitted Ψi (P) = Pi (t − 1)
power in (39) may take negative values as well as very large λi,1 Pi (t − 1) + λi,2 Γi (t − 1)
power values, which are not part of the power feasible subspace. i = 1, . . . , Q (42)
ELMUSRATI et al.: MODPC ALGORITHM FOR CDMA WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS 787

and it can be represented as From (44), one can say that Ii (αP) > Ii (P), α > 1; then

Ii (P)a Ii (αP)a
Ψi (P) = (43) αΨ(P) > = Ψ(αP). (55)
λi,1 Ii (P) + λi,2 λ1 Ii (αP) + λ2

where Ii (P) is the normalized interference for user i such as Then, the “scalability” condition has been proven.
From (47), (52), and (55), one can say that the MODPC
Q
 Gij (t)Pj (t) δ(t) algorithm is a standard interference function. This means that
Ii (P) = + (44)
j=1
Gii (t) Gii (t) the MODPC algorithm converges to a unique fixed point. This
j
=i concludes the proof.
and a = λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsupi > 0. Note that for convenience,
the time symbol t has been omitted from the interference A PPENDIX IV
function as well as the normalized interference [e.g., use Ii (P) P ROOF OF P ROPOSITION 2
instead of Ii (P(t))]. In (7), let a = λi,1 Pmin +λi,2 Γsup
i . Since Γi (t) = Pi (t)/Ii (t),
From (44), it is clear that for any where Ii (t) is the normalized interference (44) with δ(t) = 0,
P ≥ 0, Ii (P) ≥ 0. (45) (7) can be rewritten as
a
In addition, if Pi (t + 1) = 
λi,1 + λi,2 Ii (t)
P ≥ Z ⇒ Ii (P) ≥ Ii (Z). (46) a
= Ii (t) = βi (t)Ii (t). (56)
λi,1 Ii (t) + λi,2
Since 0 ≤ λi,1 ≤ 1; λi,2 = 1 − λi,1 and from (43) and (45),
then for any Now, we have obtained the same form as the DPC
algorithm [1]. The proof of convergence of this algorithm is
P ≥ 0 ⇒ Ψ(P) ≥ 0. (47) presented in [1]. Since the transmitted power of each user is
bounded by (8), the interference Ii (t) will be upper bounded
Thus, the “positivity” condition has been proven.
for all t. For convergence, tradeoff factors should be selected to
The monotonicity condition will be proven by contradiction.
satisfy the following condition:
For any P ≥ Z, assume that Ψi (P) < Ψi (Z). Then, from (43)
t 
 
Ii (P)a Ii (Z)a a
< (48) lim (µ∗ )t <∞ (57)
λi,1 Ii (P) + λi,2 λi,1 Ii (Z) + λi,2 t→∞ λi,1 Ii (t) + λi,2
k=0

Ii (Z)a λi,1 Ii (P) + λi,2 where µ∗ is the spectral radius of the normalized channel gain
Ii (P)a < (49)
λi,1 Ii (Z) + λi,2 matrix [1], [2], [18]. This concludes the proof.
 
λi,1 Ii (Z) + λi,2 IIii(P)
(Z)

Ii (P)a < Ii (P)a . (50) A PPENDIX V

λi,1 Ii (Z) + λi,2 P ROOF OF C OROLLARY 1
However, from (46) Corollary 1 can be proven using the same method as the proof
  of Proposition 1. The MOTDPC algorithm is given by
(Z)
λi,1 Ii (Z) + λi,2 IIii(P)
0< <1 (51) λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsup
i
λi,1 Ii (Z) + λi,2 Ψi (P) = Pi (t − 1)
λi,1 Pi (t − 1) + λi,2 Γ̃i (t − 1)
and (50) does not hold. Then, assumption (48) is not true. Then,
for any i = 1, . . . , Q (58)

P ≥ Z ⇒ Ψi (P) ≥ Ψi (Z). (52) where Γ̃i (t) is the estimated SINR at time slot t, which is given
by (18). The estimated SINR can be represented as
Thus, the “monotonicity” condition has been proven.
From (44), for any Γ̃i (t) = εi (t)Γi (t) (59)

α > 1 ⇒ αIi (P) ≥ Ii (αP). (53) where εi (t) ≥ 0 is the estimation error factor. By substituting
(59) in (58), we obtain
The equality is achieved if the additive noise is zero. From
(43), we get λi,1 Pmin + λi,2 Γsup
i
Ψi (P) = Pi (t − 1)
λi,1 Pi (t − 1) + λi,2 εi (t − 1)Γi (t − 1)
Ii (P)a Ii (αP)a
αΨ(P) = α ≥ . (54)
λi,1 Ii (P) + λi,2 λi,1 Ii (P) + λi,2 i = 1, . . . , Q. (60)
788 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 56, NO. 2, MARCH 2007
For a static environment, it can be assumed that the esti-
mation error factor is fixed and does not change with time.
Equation (43) can be modified in the MOTDPC case to
Ii (P)a
Ψi (P) = (61)
λi,1 Ii (P) + λ̃i,2
where λ̃i,2 = εi λi,2 . The convergence conditions of the
MODPC algorithm can be reproven for the MOTDPC algo-
rithm by repeating the same steps of Proposition 1.
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Mohammed Elmusrati (S’00–M’04) received the
B.Sc. (with honors) and M.Sc. (with high honors)
degrees in telecommunication engineering from the
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineer-
ing, Garyounis University, Benghazi, Libya, in 1991
and 1995, respectively, and the Licentiate of Sci-
ence in technology (with distinction) and Doctor of
Science in Technology degrees in control engineer-
ing from Helsinki University of Technology (HUT),
Espoo, Finland, in 2002 and 2004, respectively.
He was a Lecturer with the Department of Elec-
trical and Electronic Engineering, Garyounis University, during 1995–1999.
He is currently a Senior Lecturer and Researcher with the Department of
Computer Science, University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland, and a Part-Time Senior
Researcher with the Control Engineering Laboratory, HUT. He has also been a
Visiting Researcher with the Radio Communication Systems Laboratory (now
Wireless@KTH), Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden.
He has received several grants from Garyounis University, Nokia Foundation,
and The ELLA JA Georg Ehrnrootin Foundation. His research interests include
resource management in wireless and optical communication networks, smart
antennas, ultrawideband wireless distributed actuator and sensor networks, and
data fusion.
Riku Jäntti (M’02) received the Ph.D. degree from the Control Laboratory,
Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland, in 2001.
He is an Acting Professor and Docent (Adjunct Professor) of telecommuni-
cation engineering and the Vice Head of the Department of Computer Science,
University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland. He is also a Docent (Adjunct Professor)
of control engineering with the Control Engineering Laboratory, Helsinki Uni-
versity of Technology (TKK), Espoo, Finland. From 1998 to 1999, he was with
the Radio Communication Systems Laboratory (now Wireless@KTH), Royal
Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, as a Visiting Scholar.
He has also been a Visiting Professor with the Radio Resource Management
and Optimization Laboratory, Information and Communications University,
Daejeon, Korea. His current research interests include various control and re-
source management problems of wireless radio networks and their applications
to automation systems.
Heikki N. Koivo (S’67–M’71–SM’86) received
the B.S.E.E. degree from Purdue University, West
Lafayette, IN, and the M.S. degree in electrical
engineering and Ph.D. degree in control sciences
from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
He is a Professor of control engineering with the
Control Engineering Laboratory, Helsinki Univer-
sity of Technology (HUT), Espoo, Finland. Before
joining HUT in 1995, he served in various acad-
emic positions at the University of Toronto, Toronto,
ON, Canada, and Tampere University of Technology,
Tampere, Finland. He has been the Principal Investigator in more than 100
research projects. He has authored more than 300 scientific publications. His
research interests include the study of complex systems, adaptive and learning
control, mechatronics, microsystems, and wireless communication systems.
Dr. Koivo is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Intelligent and
Fuzzy Systems, Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing, and the Journal of
Systems and Control Engineering. He was an Associate Editor of the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION and a member of the
Administrative Council of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He is
a Fellow of the Finnish Academy of Technology.