A novel resource allocation algorithm based on downlink and uplink decouple access scheme in heterogeneous networks

Traditional cellular network requires that a user equipment (UE) should associate to the same base station (BS) in both the downlink (DL) and the uplink (UL). Based on dual connectivity (DC) introduced in LTE-Advanced R12, DL/UL decouple access scheme has been proposed, which is especially suitable for heterogeneous networks (HetNets). This paper is the pioneer to take the DL/UL decouple access scheme into consideration and develop a novel resource allocation algorithm in a two-tier HetNet to improve the total system throughput in the UL and ease the load imbalance between macro base stations (MBSs) and pico base stations (PBSs). A model is formulated as a nonlinear integer programming, and the proposed algorithm is a sub-optimal algorithm based on the graph theory. First, an undirected and weighted interference graph is obtained. Next, the users are grouped to let users with large mutual interferences to be assigned to different clusters. Then, the users in different clusters are allocated to different resource blocks (RBs) by using the Hungarian algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can provide great promotions for both the total system throughput and the average cell edge user throughput and successfully ease the load imbalance between MBSs and PBSs.