ADAPTIVE RESOURCE ALLOCATION IN A MULTIUSER OFDM

SYSTEM
SHALINI.V.S
ECE Department, GSSSIETW, K.R.S. Road, Metagalli, Mysuru,-16, Karnataka, India

DR. PARAMESHACHARI B. D.
ECE Department, GSSSIETW, K.R.S. Road, Metagalli, Mysuru-16, Karnataka, India

ABSTRACT: Multiuser Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MUOFDM) is a technique

used to obtain high downlink capacity in wireless system. Allocation of subcarriers and power
among many users sharing the channel is the main consideration. Previous algorithm designed
does not provide fairness to all users. In this paper a rate adaptive algorithm is proposed in which
subcarrier and power allocation is done sequentially to reduce system complexity. Simulation
results shows that this MUOFDM system achieves higher capacity when compared to previously
derived resource allocation scheme.

KEYWORDS: MUOFDM, channel state information, adaptive resource allocation, .

INTRODUCTION

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising technique for the next
generation of cellular systems [1] [2]. In this technique the entire transmission bandwidth is divided
into N orthogonal subchannels. Cyclic prefix (CP) is added to each OFDM symbol. The
intersymbol and intercarrier interference can be removed by making the the CP length longer than
the channel length. Each subchannel is then modeled as a gain plus additive white Gaussian noise
(AWGN). As the subchannels are independent of each other multiple access can be achieved.

There exists two classes of resource allocation schemes: fixed resource allocation [3] and dynamic
resource allocation [4] [5]. Fixed resource allocation schemes, such as frequency division multiple
access (FDMA) assigns a particular frequency band to each user and time division multiple access
(TDMA), assign a time slot to each user irrespective of channel state condition. Since the resource
allocation is fixed regardless of channel condition, fixed allocation scheme is not optimal. The
dynamic resource allocation schemes allocates a dimension adaptively to the users depending on
their channel gains.

In dynamic resource allocation schemes there are two classes of optimizations : margin adaptive
(MA) [6] and rate adaptive (RA) [7], [8]. The key objective of margin adaptive is to achieve the
minimum overall transmit power given the constraints on the bit error rate (BER) or users data rate.
On the other hand the rate adaptive objective is to maximize each users error-free capacity with a
constraint on the total transmit power.

These optimization problems are computationally intensive to solve because of its non linear
nature. Hence the nonlinear optimization problems are transformed into a linear optimization
problem with integer variables[8]. Integer programming is used to obtain an optimal solution but
even with integer programming, the complexity of the system increases exponentially with the
number of constraints and variables.

In this paper, rate adaptive optimization is proposed. The proposed rate adaptive optimization tries
to maximize the overall capacity of the users while maintaining proportional fairness among them,
rather than maximizing the capacity of each user as in the case of [7] . Allocation of subcarrier and
power is carried out separately to reduce the system complexity.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 comprises of the multiuser OFDM system model. In
Section 3, subcarrier and power allocation scheme is developed. Section 4 presents the simulation
results . Conclusions are stated in Section 5.

PROPOSED SYSTEM

Fig. 1 shows a multiuser OFDM system. The subcarrier and power allocation algorithm located in
the base station receives a channel state information through feedback channel from the mobile
user. The resource allocation scheme made by the subcarrier and power allocation algorithm is
sent to the OFDM transmitter. In order to form an OFDM symbol different number of bits are
selected from different users. The resource allocation scheme is updated as soon as the channel
information is collected from the users. Perfect instantaneous channel information is assumed to be
available at the base station and only the broadcast scenario is considered.and it is also assumed
that each user receives a channel and bit allocation by a separate channel. The above two
assumptions made are not practical in real wireless system.

Fig.1. Multiuser OFDM System Block Diagram

In order to obtain an optimal solution subcarriers and power allocation should be done jointly but,
this poses a heavy computational burden at the base station. As the wireless channel changes
quickly the base station has to compute subcaarier and power allocation rapidly. Hence for cost-
effective implementations suboptimal algorithms with lower complexity are preferred. Separating
the allocation of subcarrier and power is one of the way to reduce the complexity as the number of

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variables in the function is almost reduced by half. In this paper, subcarrier allocation is assumed to
be performed by the algorithm defined in [7].

The subcarrier allocation is performed before the power allocation, the optimization problem is
considered as

(1)

where; K is the total number of users; N is the total number of subchannels; N0 is the power
spectrum density of AWGN; Ptotal and B are the overall available power and bandwidth
respectively; pk,n denotes power allocation for user k in the subcarrier n; hk,n is the channel gain for
user k in subcarrier n; k is the set of subcarriers for user k and they are mutually exclusive; Nk is
the number of subcarriers in k; Rk is the channel capacity for user k. {i}K i=1 denotes a set of
predetermined values which are used to ensure proportional fairness among all the users. When all
is values are the same, the objective function is similar to the objective function for the rate
adaptive method [7], as maximizing the overall capacity while making all Rks equal is similar to
maximizing the minimum users capacity. The last constraint in (1) also prevents the situation that
no resource allocation scheme exists because of impractical capacity requirements from some of
the users.

OPTIMAL POWER ALLOCATION

After the subcarrier allocation the next step is to allocate power to the allocated subcarrier. The
allocation of power is done using water filling algorithm. The algorithm is as follows
1. Initialization
set Rk = 0, k = for k = 1; 2; :::;K and A = {1; 2; :::;N}
2. For k = 1 to K
let k = k U [n], A = A - {n} and update Rk
3. While A is notequal to
(a) find k satisfying Rk/k Ri/i
(b) for the found k and n, let k = k U [n], A = A - {n} and update Rk

Single User Power Allocation

There is no power allocation to a certain user k if Vk > Pk,tot. This situation happens when a
subcarrier is allocated to a user who does not have a high channel gain. This leads the water-
filling algorithm to stop using tat subcarrier. In case if this situation happens, then the set of k,
and the corresponding values of Nk, Vk and Wk, needs to be updated and the power allocation
algorithm presented should be executed again.

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 Multiuser Power Allocation
If the channel-to-noise ratio is high, then there exists one and only one solution, as every term in
the summation increases monotonically and has different signs at P1,tot = 0 and P1,tot = Ptotal. A
numerical algorithm can be used to find the solution. The complexity of finding the solution will
primarily depend on the numerical algorithm choosen and the precision required in the result
analysis. After P1,tot is found, the overall power allocation scheme can be determined.

In general, it can be stated that an optimal subcarrier and power allocation scheme is must be
selected such that it satisfies both proportional fairness constraints and the total power constraint.

Furthermore, the optimal scheme chosen must utilize all the available power. Many facts lead to
the above stated conclusion. First,capacity of each user can be maximized by adopting water
filling algorithm. The capacity function is continuous with respect to the total available power
assigned to that user. In other words it can be stated as, Rk(Pk,tot) is continuous with Pk,tot.
Second, if the optimal resource allocation scheme does not use all the available power, then there
is always an option to redistribute the unused power among all users while maintaining the
capacity ratio constraints.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In all simulation results presented in this section, the wireless channel is modeled as a frequency-
selective channel which contains six Rayleigh fading multipaths which are independent of each
other. Each multipath component can be modeled by Clarke's fading model. The total available
transmit power and bandwidth are 1 W and 1 MHz, respectively.

Fig. 2 shows the sum capacity of a two-user ten-subchannel system vs fairness index. The power
spectrum density of AWGN is -70 dBW/Hz. Figure shows the both suboptimal and the optimal
results. In order to reduce the time to find the optimal solution a small number of users and
subchannels are considered. Fig. 2 shows that the sum capacity is not so sensitive to the fairness
index ratio 1=2 when there is no path loss difference between the two users. However, when
there exists a path loss difference, for e.g. 10 dB, the sum capacity varies very greatly with the
fairness constraint ratio. For example, if the averaged channel power of user 1, denoted by E(ch1),
is made 10 dB higher than average channel power of user 2, denoted by E(ch2), then the sum
capacity reduces as 1=2 decreases. As 1=2 decreases, more priority is assigned to user 2 and
hence user 2 will be allocated with most of the available resources, such as power and bandwidth,
which lowers the sum capacity as the average channel power of user 2 is 10 dB lower than user 1.
From Fig. 2, it can be seen that the proposed method achieves about 95% of the optimal
performance in a ten-subchannel two user system. The subchannel allocation algorithm must
utilize all the subchannel having high channel to noise ratio and power allocation must be optimal
to all the allocated subchannel.

Fig. 3 shows that the sum capacity of the proposed resource allocation scheme in an eight-user
OFDM system vs. different fairness index. It can be seen that the maximum sum capacity is
achieved by the sum capacity maximization method, because all the resources are allocated to the
users with the best channel gain. The sum capacity achieved by the proposed algorithm varies as
the fairness rate constraint changes. As more priority is given to user 1, it is allocated with higher
sum capacity.

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 3 .5

Overall capacity (bits/s/Hz)

3

2 .5

1 .5

1 o p t i m a l , E (c h 1 )/ E (c h 2 )= 1
d e c o u p le d , E (c h 1 )/ E (c h 2 )= 1
o p t i m a l , E (c h 1 )/ E (c h 2 )= 0 . 1
0 .5 d e c o u p le d , E (c h 1 )/ E (c h 2 )= 0 . 1
o p t i m a l , E (c h 1 )/ E (c h 2 )= 1 0
d e c o u p le d , E (c h 1 )/ E (c h 2 )= 1 0
0
-1 0 -5 0 5 10
1 0 * lo g 1 0 ( 1 / 2 )

Fig. 2 Optimal vs. suboptimal adaptive resource allocation

10
Ergodic Sum Capacity (bits/s/Hz)

8
m a x s u m c a p a c ity
s i n g le u s e r ( h i g h e r S N R )
p ro p o s e d
7 s ta t i c T D M A
s i n g le u s e r ( lo w e r S N R )

6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
F a ir n e s s In d e x m

Fig 3. Ergodic sum capacity of an 8-user OFDM system

Fig. 4 shows the normalized ergodic capacity distribution among the different users. With the
proposed subchannel and power allocation algorithm, the capacity is very well distributed among
all the users according to the rate constraints. However, with capacity maximization method, user
1 gets most of the resources and hence it achieves a significant part of the sum capacity. Static
TDMA allocates similar capacity to each user as all users..
Normalized Ergodic Capacity Per User

0 .8
i d e a l, m = 3
p ro p o s e d m = 3
m a x s u m c a p a c i ty
0 .6 s ta ti c T D M A

0 .4

0 .2

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
U s e r In d e x k

Fig 4. Normalized Ergodic sum capacity distribution

Fig 5 shows the allocation of power to different users. SNR is set as 6db and number of users are
assumed be 5. From the figure it can be seen that noise is very neglible when compred to the data
being transferred thus the overall capacity maximization is achieved.

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 4 a) Amount of allocated power
x 10
8
Power Allocated
6 Estimation Noise

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

4
x 10 1/ Channel to noise ration
6
ECSI
FCSI
4

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Fig 5: Allocation of power to different user

CONCLUSION

In this work, a resource allocation algorithm in multiuser OFDM systems is presented to achieve
variable proportional rate constraints which utilizes all the limited resources in a better efficient
manner.

The proposed optimization problem concentrates on both maximizing the sum capacity and
maintaining proportional fairness among users for each channel realization. In the suboptimal
algorithm proposed, subchannel and power allocation are carried out separately so as to reduce the
system complexity. After the subchannel allocation, the optimal power allocation to a determined
subchannel scheme is developed. A two-step procedure is developed to get the optimal power
distribution. First, a set of nonlinear equations must be solved in order to get the power distribution
among users. Then to a particular user, the water filling algorithm is adopted to maximize the
capacity.

Simulation results show that the suboptimal algorithm proposed can achieve above 95% of the
optimal performance in a two-user ten subchannel system. Simulation results also shows that the
proposed resource allocation algorithm distributs sum capacity more fairly among all
users when compared to sum capacity maximization algorithm.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to thank Dr. Sumithradevi K A, principal, GSSSIETW, Mysuru for her extended
support in project and forcing me to put in continuous efforts with properly scheduled deadlines.
My contribution and work on this project is a result of help and encouragement from Associate
Prof. Dr. Parameshachari B D. Dept of ECE and Asst prof. Jayanth J, GSSSIETW, Mysuru, who
has provided me with the best knowledge about the project. I would like to thank them both for
their invaluable support and guidance..

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