Comparison of optimization criteria for dynamic subcarrier allocation in single carrier FDMA systems

This paper investigates the effect of using different optimization criteria for dynamic subcarrier allocation in a single carrier - frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) system. Simulation results show that using the minimum bit error rate (BER) as the optimization criterion has the best BER performance and an almost optimal capacity performance. The other criteria referred to as maximum spectral efficiency (SE), maximum channel gains and maximum output signal-to-interference-to-noise ratio (SINR), do not attain the same performance trade-off as the minimum BER. In addition, the simulation results show that the optimization criteria, is just as important as the dynamic subcarrier allocation algorithm in determining the overall performance of the system.