Resource Allocation for IRS-Aided JP-CoMP Downlink Cellular Networks with Underlaying D2D Communications

This paper investigates resource allocation design for intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided joint processing coordinated multipoint (JP-CoMP) downlink cellular networks with underlaying device-to-device (D2D) communications. In particular, the IRS is employed to establish favorable communication channel conditions and to mitigate the malignant interference caused by D2D devices. We aim to maximize the total weighted system sum-rate by jointly designing the cellular user (CU) association, the active beamforming at the base stations (BSs), the passive beamforming at the IRS, and the transmit power of each D2D transmitter. The resource allocation design is formulated as a non-convex optimization problem while taking into account the quality of service requirement of CUs and the power allocations for both CUs and D2D pairs. We propose a computationally efficient suboptimal iterative algorithm, which is guaranteed to converge to a Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) solution of the design problem. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can significantly improve the system sum-rate over various baseline schemes adopting existing solutions. Also, our results confirm the superiority of introducing IRS for managing interference in wireless communication systems.