Joint Resource Allocation and Beamforming in Integrated Access and Backhaul Networks under Non-Uniform Traffic

Given the non-uniform traffic distribution, integrated access and backhaul (IAB) offers a distinct advantage in enhancing resource utilization through efficient allocation. In dense node deployments, this advantage can be further amplified by utilizing beamforming with large-scale antenna arrays, which effectively mitigates interference between nodes. However, this comes with a significant energy consumption challenge. To meet the demands of green communications, we jointly allocate power and bandwidth with beamwidth adjustment through the phase shifters (PS) deactivation strategy. The goal is to maximize the overall backhaul rate under access rate and backhaul latency con straints. Existing optimization methods face challenges in solving the formulated Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) problem. We developed an iterative resource allocation algorithm along with a sequential deactivation algorithm to obtain the optimal solution, which was validated through simulation. We compared energy efficiency across different allocation and PS deactivation strategies, as well as the performance of the strategy under varying network densities and load conditions. The results demonstrate that our strategies can significantly improve energy efficiency in diverse channel and network environments, highlighting the benefits of the proposed beamwidth adjustment strategy over traditional beamforming methods.