A particle swarm optimization algorithm for resource allocation in femtocell networks

Femtocell network is an efficient configuration to improve coverage and quality of service (QoS) in cellular networks. However, due to dense deployment, users in a femtocell may be interfered by the base stations nearby, resulting in a deteriorated throughput of the femtocell. In this paper, we investigate the resource allocation problem targeting at max-min throughput of the femtocells. Under the assumption that a number of discrete power levels are available for each device, a joint optimization problem over power control and channel allocation is formulated. We show its hardness and propose a particle swarm optimization based algorithm PCASO. We demonstrate the efficiency of PCASO by thorough numerical experiments.