Rate Adaptive Resource Allocation and Utility-Based Packet Scheduling in Multicarrier Systems

There are several approaches for Radio Resource Management (RRM) in multicarrier cellular systems. This work analyzes and compares two of them: rate-adaptive resource allocation (sub-carriers and power) based on instantaneous data rates, and utility-based packet scheduling based on average data rates. A fundamental RRM problem in wireless cellular networks was chosen as a background to evaluate the aforementioned approaches: the trade-off between system spectral efficiency and fairness among the users when opportunistic allocation is used. Extensive system-level simulations were performed and important network metrics such as total cell throughput, mean user throughput, system fairness index and user satisfaction were assessed. It was concluded from the simulation results that it is possible to achieve an efficient trade-off between resource efficiency and fairness using any of the two RRM approaches. However, utility-based packet scheduling algorithms based on average data rates have the advantage of presenting higher user satisfaction with less computational complexity.