QoS and energy efficient resource allocation in downlink OFDMA systems

In this paper we present and evaluate the performance of a resource allocation algorithm to enhance the Quality of Service (QoS) provision and energy efficiency of downlink Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) systems. The proposed algorithm performs resource allocation using information on the downlink packet delay, the average delay and data rate of past allocations, as well as the downlink users´ buffer status in order to minimize packet segmentation. Based on simulation results, the proposed algorithm achieves significant performance improvement in terms of packet timeout rate, goodput, fairness, and average delay. Moreover, the effect of poor QoS provision on energy efficiency is demonstrated through the evaluation of the performance in terms of energy consumption per successfully received bit.