Delay constrained rate and power adaptation over correlated fading channels

We present a general Markov decision process based framework for the identification of optimal delay-constrained rate adaptation for MQAM systems and power adaptation for type-I hybrid ARQ systems. This framework can be applied to adaptive resource allocation over correlated fading channels. It is shown that the optimal rate and power control can be obtained by solving the appropriately formulated Markov decision processes using linear programming techniques. In the case of adaptive MQAM systems, the optimal rate allocation policy is dependent on the current buffer occupancy and the channel state. For hybrid ARQ systems the power control law can be formulated as being dependent on the current buffer occupancy and the history record of channel and action observations. The results of this paper are of importance for the development of modern wireless standards that support delay sensitive multimedia traffic.