Auction based resource allocation in wireless systems

1. A method to assign power, sub-carrier(s), modulation and coding scheme(s) resources in a multi-user system with one or more cells, comprising:

specifying a resource allocation problem for allocating the resources;

converting the resource allocation problem into an assignment problem;

solving the assignment problem through an auction process;

allocating the resources to cellular users to maximize a system utility; and

determining a single cell type 1 resource allocation according to

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such that Σ k α ki≦ 1, ∀i, ñ kl ≦Σ i α ki ≦ñ ku , ∀k; α ki ε{0,1}, where

W k comprises a weight factor of a user k,

{tilde over (c)} ki comprises a throughput when assigning a subcarrier i to the user k,

α ki comprises an indicator on whether the subcarrier i is allocated to the user k,

ñ kl comprises a lower bound on the total subcarriers assigned to the user k, and

ñ ku comprises an upper bound on the total subcarriers assigned to the user k.

2. The method of claim 1 , comprising determining a multi-cell type 1 resource allocation according to

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such that Σ k j α k j l +Σ k i ε j α {circumflex over (k)} ij l ≦1, l,j; n k j l ≦Σ l α k j l ≦n k j u , k j , j; α {circumflex over (k)} ij l =α k i l , l, k i ε j , j;α k j l ε{0,1}, l,k j ,j, where

w kj comprises a weight factor of a user in a jth cell,

c kjl comprises a throughput when assigning a subcarrier l to a user k in a cell j,

α kjl comprises an indicator of whether the subcarrier l is allocated to the user k in cell j, and

n kjl comprises a lower bound of the total subcarriers assigned to the user k in cell j.

3. A method to assign power, sub-carrier(s), modulation and coding scheme(s) resources in a multi-user system with one or more cells, comprising specifying a resource allocation problem for allocating the resources;

converting the resource allocation problem into an assignment problem;

solving the assignment problem through an auction process;

allocating the resources to cellular users to maximize a system utility; and

directing the resources using the auction process resulting in a largest increase in the system utility,

removing a sub-carrier allocated to a user in a cell if a weighted rate of the user on the sub-carrier is less than one of the corresponding weighted rates of users in adjacent cells and the number of subcarriers assigned to the cell is greater than a minimum bandwidth constraint.

4. The method of claim 3 , comprising receiving as input a per-user power level, one or more bandwidth constraints, a constellation set, an outer code penalty, and channel gain information.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein the assignment problem comprises a symmetric assignment problem.

6. The method of claim 3 , comprising determining a sub-carrier assignment for each user.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the subcarrier assignment is determined under fixed per-user per subcarrier power, practical modulation and coding scheme(s) and per-user bandwidth constraint(s).

8. The method of claim 3 , comprising removing a sub-carrier allocated to a user in adjacent cells if a weighted rate of a user on the sub-carrier in a given cell is greater than corresponding weighted rates of other users in adjacent cells or if the number of subcarriers assigned to the user is equal to a minimum bandwidth constraint.

9. The method of claim 3 , wherein the resource comprises one or more resources in an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) uplink.

10. The method of claim 3 comprising selecting and assigning one or more sub-carriers to a user from a set of users which have not been selected yet that results in the largest increase in the system utility.

11. A method to assign power, sub-carrier(s), modulation and coding scheme(s) resources in a multi-user system with one or more cells, comprising:

specifying a resource allocation problem for allocating the resources;

converting the resource allocation problem into an assignment problem;

solving the assignment problem through an auction process;

allocating the resources to cellular users to maximize a system utility;

performing a carrier assignment with constant bandwidths for a set {n 1 , . . ., n K } and constant power level P k /n k , where n k denotes the number of subcarriers allocated to user k;

selecting a subcarrier with the smallest reward for a user k j and assigning the selected subcarrier to all other users except user k j , and

performing equal power allocation for the user over assigned sub-carriers to obtain a weighted sum rate.