Proportional rate constrained resource allocation in multicarrier nonorthogonal multiple access systems

Abstract

AbstractIn multicarrier nonorthogonal multiple access (MC‐NOMA) systems, resource allocation for user rate fairness is an inherent challenge due to the huge difference in channel conditions among different users. As the general case of proportional fairness, proportional rate constraint is usually adopted in resource allocation optimization problems to ensure that achievable rates of users are distributed proportionally according to a set of arbitrarily predefined portion. In this article, we investigate joint subcarrier and power allocation in MC‐NOMA systems under proportional rate constraints. The formulated resource allocation optimization problem belongs to a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem due to its binary subcarrier allocation variables and nonaffine equality constraints. By introducing an auxiliary variable in proportional rate constraints and substituting power variable with rate variable, we convert this nonconvex problem into a convex optimization problem and solve it by using Karush‐Kuhn‐Tucker (KKT) conditions and the dual decomposition method. Based on the optimal solutions, we divide the resource allocation process into two phases, that is, subcarrier allocation and power allocation, and develop an optimal subcarrier allocation solution based resource allocation algorithm (OSSRA). Furthermore, we also propose a heuristic algorithm, referred to as proportional rate constrained subcarrier allocation algorithm (PCSAA), as a benchmark. Numerical results show that, substantial gains can be achieved by OSSRA over the existing work and the traditional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) schemes in terms of both sum rate and user fairness. Besides, PCSAA has better user fairness performance than OSSRA.