Resource allocation for OFDM relay systems with statistical QoS guarantees

Abstract

SUMMARY By integrating the concept of effective capacity, we propose the resource allocation schemes for subcarrier‐pair based OFDM decode‐and‐forward and amplify‐and‐forward relay systems for quality‐of‐service (QoS) guarantees. The objective is to maximize the system throughput subject to a given statistical delay QoS constraint. First, we pair the subcarriers over the source‐relay channel and the relay‐destination channel by the descending order of the subcarriers' channel gains. Second, by making use of the derived equivalent end‐to‐end channel gains of the subcarrier pairs, we apply joint water‐filling power allocation over the subcarrier pairs and then partition the power of the subcarrier pairs between the source and the relay. We prove that as the equivalent end‐to‐end channel gains of the subcarrier pairs are given, the combination of sorted subcarrier pairing and joint water‐filling power allocation is jointly optimal to maximize the effective capacity. The simulation results show that our proposed schemes achieve the highest effective capacity for OFDM decode‐and‐forward and amplify‐and‐forward relay systems as compared with other existing schemes. The results also verify that our proposed schemes can efficiently provide different levels of delay QoS guarantees, even if under the stringent delay QoS constraints. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.