Improved Resource Allocation Algorithm Based on Partial Solution Estimation for SC-FDMA Systems

Single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) has been adopted as the standard multiple access scheme for 3GPP LTE uplink. In comparison to orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), the subcarriers assigned to each user are required to be consecutive in SC-FDMA localized scheme, which imposes more difficulties on resource allocation problem. Subject to this constraint, various optimization objectives, such as utility maximization and power minimization, have been studied for SC-FDMA resource allocation. In this paper, we focus on developing a general algorithm framework with near-optimal performance and polynomial-time complexity to maximize the total utility for SC-FDMA systems. The proposed algorithm is based on low-complexity estimation for the partial solution space. Compared with existing algorithms, simulation results show that our algorithm improves the system utility significantly and has less deviation to global optimum. In addition, the proposed algorithm framework allows a flexible trade-off between computational effort and solution performance by varying the complexity of estimation approaches.