Radio resource allocation for cellular networks based on OFDMA with QoS guarantees

In this paper we address the problem of radio resource allocation for QoS support in the downlink of a cellular OFDMA system. The major impairments considered are cochannel interference (CCI) and frequency selective fading. The allocation problem involves assignment of base stations and subcarriers, bit loading, and power control, for multiple users. We propose a three-stage, low-complexity, heuristic algorithm to distribute radio resources among multiple users according to their individual QoS requirements, while at the same time maintaining the QoS of already established links in all the cochannel cells. The allocation objective is to minimize the total transmit power, which adds to reducing CCI. Simulation results show a superior performance of the proposed method when compared to classical radio resource management techniques. Our scheme allows us to achieve almost 6 times higher capacity (sum data rate) than the method based on FDMA with power control, at a blocking probability of 0.02.