Power-efficient resource allocation for time-division multiple access over fading channels

We investigate resource allocation policies for time-division multiple access (TDMA) over fading channels in the power-limited regime. For frequency-flat block-fading channels and transmitters having full channel state information (CSI), we first minimize power under a weighted sum average rate constraint and show that the optimal rate and time allocation policies can be obtained by a greedy water-filling approach with linear complexity in the number of users. Subsequently, we pursue power minimization under individual average rate constraints and establish that the optimal resource allocation also amounts to a greedy water-filling solution. Our approaches not only provide fundamental power limits when each user can support an infinite-size capacity-achieving codebook (continuous rates), but also yield guidelines for practical designs where users can only support a finite set of adaptive modulation and coding modes (discrete rates).