Power control and group proportional fairness for frequency domain resource allocation in L-SC-FDMA based LTE uplink

Abstract

Resource allocation in Long Term Evaluation (LTE) uplink is challenging because of two reasons: (1) it requires contiguous resource block allocation and (2) high complexity due to per user based power allocation among resource blocks. This paper presents a low complexity, optimal power resource allocation scheme for LTE uplink. We propose Virtual Cluster-based Proportional Fairness scheme that exploits the link adaptation information available at MAC layer to form virtual clusters. The distributed proportional fair scheduler ensures a minimum throughput for all users in the coverage area by assigning contiguous resource blocks, proportional to the throughput and the number of users in a particular cluster or group. Then, it allocates power to each resource block through water-filling algorithm which gives 20.2% increase in average user throughout compared to equal power allocation. Simulations have been performed using practical scenarios of uniformly distributed users in Rician fading environment. Mathematical framework has been devised for network planning to get the best possible fairness with promising level of quality of service. 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.