Fairness-Aware Resource Allocation in a Cooperative OFDMA Uplink System

This paper investigates subcarrier and power-allocation schemes considering fairness issues in a cooperative orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA) uplink system. A pseudochannel gain is introduced to convert cooperative transmissions to virtual direct transmissions. By utilizing pseudochannel gains, we can simplify a cooperative OFDMA resource-allocation problem to a traditional one. Furthermore, minimum rate requirements are considered to include fairness issues. An algorithm that provides an efficient solution with low computational complexity is proposed. Experimental results show that the fairness with minimum rate requirements is achieved outstandingly, and cooperative transmissions prevail over direct transmissions in the aspect of the total system throughput.