Resource Allocation in OFDMA Femto Networks

Femtocells offer many advantages in wireless networks such as improved cell capacity and coverage in indoor areas. As these femtocells can be deployed in an ad-hoc manner by different consumers in the same frequency band, the femtocells can interfere with each other. To fully realize the potential of the femtocells, it is necessary to allocate resources to them in such a way that interference is mitigated. We propose a distributed resource allocation algorithm for femtocell networks that is modelled after link-state routing protocols. Resource Allocation using Link State Propagation (RALP) consists of a graph formation stage, where individual femtocells build a view of the network, and an allocation stage, where every femtocell executes an algorithm to assign OFDMA resources to all the femtocells in the network. Our evaluation shows that RALP performs better than existing femtocell resource allocation algorithms with respect to spatial reuse and satisfaction rate of required throughput.