A Non-Cooperative Approach to the Joint Subcarrier and Power Allocation Problem in Multi-Service SCFDMA Networks

In this paper a joint resource allocation problem is studied in a multi-service Single Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) wireless network. Mobile users request various services with different Quality of Service (QoS) characteristics and they determine in a distributed and non-cooperative manner a joint subcarrier and power allocation towards fulfilling their QoS prerequisites. Initially, a well-designed utility function is formulated to appropriately represent users’ diverse QoS prerequisites with respect to their requested service. The subcarriers allocation problem is solved based on a multilateral bargaining model, where users are able to select different discount factors to enter the bargaining game, thus better expressing their different needs in system resources with respect to their requested service. The subcarriers mapping is realized based either on the localized SC-FDMA method where the subcarriers are sequentially allocated to the users or the distributed SC-FDMA via considering the maximum channel gain policy, where each subcarrier is allocated to the user with the maximum channel gain. Given the subcarriers assignment, an optimization problem with respect to users’ uplink transmission power is formulated and solved, in order to determine the optimal power allocation per subcarrier assigned to each user. Finally, the performance of the proposed framework is evaluated via modeling and simulation and extensive numerical results are presented.