IEEE 802.11ax OFDMA Resource Allocation with Frequency-Selective Fading

Abstract

This paper studies the usage of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) for uplink transmissions in IEEE 802.11ax networks. OFDMA enables simultaneous multi-user transmissions in Wi-Fi, but its usage requires efficient resource allocation algorithms. These algorithms should be able to adapt to the changing channel conditions, including the frequency-selective fading. This paper presents an OFDMA resource allocation algorithm for channels with frequency-selective fading and proposes an approach to adapt the user transmission power and modulation and coding schemes to the varying channel conditions, which is efficient even in the case when the access point has outdated channel state information. The proposed scheduling algorithm and power allocation approach can double the goodput and halve the data transmission time in Wi-Fi networks even in dense deployments of access points.