A Joint Subcarrier/Power allocation Scheme for OFDMA-based Cellular Networks

Abstract: The assignment of this master thesis consists of initiating power, subcarrier allocation in a dynamic FFR based scheme designed for multi-cell OFDMA networks and to enhance the throughput of all center users in bandwidth hungry borrower cells (overloaded cells) which was previously degraded by original FFR3 scheme as a result of partitioning of system bandwidth into center and edge bands respectively. The method uses band borrowing to compensate center user’s throughput loss in a semi and fully overloaded system. The scheme uses dynamic programming method (0/1 knapsack problem) to bargain an edge band on various power levels and tends to check the best combination (power and sub-carrier) which the system can utilize while still maintaining acceptable throughput loss for the users at the edge of the neighboring cell (lender cell). The algorithm consists of generating a borrowing request to neighboring cells for utilizing their edge bands by the overloaded borrower cell if their average center user throughput reaches below a minimum threshold value set in the system. The borrowing method uses 0/1 knapsack problem to capture an edge band based on limiting factors of total cost in average throughput losses by neighbors (Ci) and Un (tolerable mean user edge user throughput loss by lending cell). While solving knapsack problem the lender (neighbors) will check Ci and Un before granting the right to use its edge band. The later stage requires reducing subcarrier power level in order to utilize the lenders edge band using "soft borrower" mode. The borrowed sub-carriers will be activated take power from the original center band sub-carriers of the overloaded cell by taking into account the interference between the lender and the borrower. In case of negative (0) reply from the lender cell after the first request, multiple requests are generated at reduce power level at every step to order to acquire more bands. If a neighbor has band borrowing requests from multiple overloaded base stations, the band will be granted to the one which gives minimal loss in terms of throughput to the lender cell. The simulation results are analyzed w.r.t reuse-1 and FFR3 scheme of a multi cell regular and irregular scenarios comprising of lightly to heavily overloaded cells with various subcarrier allocation patterns. An overhead and time assessment is also presented between borrower and lender cells. Simulation results show an increase of 60% in center user’s throughput w.r.t original FFR3 scheme with an acceptable loss of 18% at the edges in complex overloaded scenarios while the overall system throughout increases by 35%.