Joint power and resource allocation for orthogonal amplify-and-forward pairwise user cooperation

We consider the jointly optimal allocation of transmission power and channel resources (such as time and bandwidth) for an orthogonal amplify-and-forward (AF) pairwise cooperation scheme. In particular, we derive a simple efficient algorithm for determining the joint allocations required to operate at any point on the boundary of the achievable rate region. The algorithm is based on a closed-form solution, derived herein, for the optimal power allocation for a given channel resource allocation, and on showing that the channel resource allocation problem is quasi-convex.