Device-to-Device (D2D) and Massive Machine Communication (MMC) are believed to be cornerstones in next generation cellular technologies. With D2D enabled in Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) networks, devices in physical proximity are able to discover each other and communicate via a direct path using licensed LTE spectrums. As a method to increase spectrum utilisation, extend cellular coverage, and offload backhaul traffic, D2D has been proposed in 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) LTE-A, but mainly to address Public Safety communications. Combining with LTE-A D2D, networks with massive number of machine type communications, such as wireless sensor network, introduces a paradigm shift and opens up new opportunities for proximity-based services.

Based on 3GPP standardised channel models, this thesis simulates and analyses D2D message exchanges between two sensor nodes and the maximum communication range obtained under different environments with receiver diversity. Also, a novel distributed resource allocation method is proposed for the clustered sensor network. D2D will introduce a new interference source to regular cellular users. Through a comparison between three power control approaches under two distributed resource allocation methods, this thesis analyses interference not only among the clustered sensor nodes, but also between sensor nodes and cellular users, and proposes a feasible power control mechanism for a sensor network with relatively stable topology. Furthermore, mobility support for D2D is studied and solutions are proposed for the control plane and the user plane. An optimised Coordinated Multi Point (CoMP) scheme is proposed to support D2D soft handover and reduce the signalling overhead for clustered sensor network. Performance comparison between the original CoMP and the optimised one is also presented.

With the inherent synchronisation, security and high speed features of LTE-A network, the use of D2D for sensor networking is promising a bright prospect.