A Survey on Resource Allocation in OFDMA Wireless Networks

OFDMA is the access scheme used in the third and fourth generation wireless cellular networks. Proper allocation of bandwidth and power is essential for ensuring the optimal performance and utilization of the resources in the OFDMA based cellular networks. The resource allocation in uplink direction and downlink directional will need different approaches. In uplink direction, different categories of algorithms like static, dynamic, centralized, distributed, instantaneous, stochastic, single cell, multi-cell, optimal, suboptimal algorithms are followed. In case of downlink direction, margin adaptive and rate adaptive algorithms are followed. In this paper, resource allocation and scheduling schemes in both uplink and downlink of OFDMA are considered. Various resource allocation approaches and the challenges faced are discussed.