April 2013, 20(2): 711

www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10058885 http://jcupt.xsw.bupt.cn

The Journal of China
Universities of Posts and
Telecommunications
Resource allocation algorithm in LTE uplink SC-FDMA system for
time-varying channel with imperfect channel state information
XU Quan-sheng (), LI Xi, JI Hong, YAO Li-ping
Key Laboratory of Universal Wireless Communications, Ministry of Education, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China

Abstract
In long term evolution (LTE) uplink single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) system, the restriction
that multiple resource blocks (RBs) allocated to a user should be adjacent, makes the resource allocation problem hard to
solve. Moreover, with the practical constraint that perfect channel state information (CSI) cannot be obtained in
time-varying channel, the resource allocation problem will become more difficult. In this paper, an efficient resource
allocation algorithm is proposed in LTE uplink SC-FDMA system with imperfect CSI assumption. Firstly, the resource
allocation problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming problem. Then an efficient algorithm based on discrete
stochastic optimization is proposed to solve the problem. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has
desirable system performance.
Keywords SC-FDMA, resource allocation, imperfect channel state information, discrete stochastic optimization, time-varying channel

1 Introduction


SC-FDMA has similar system structure and
performance with orthogonal frequency division multiple
access (OFDMA) but with many advantages such as low
peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR) [1]. The characteristic
of low PAPR will greatly benefit mobile terminals in terms
of power efficiency. Therefore, localized mode SC-FDMA
is adopted for the uplink of long term evolution (LTE).
However, there are some restrictions in LTE uplink
SC-FDMA system [23], which will increase the difficulty
on resource allocation. (1) Exclusivity, i.e. a sub-channel
cannot be allocated to more than one user simultaneously,
unless multiplexing technique is adopted; (2) adjacency, i.e.
multiple sub-channels allocated to a user must be adjacent
to each other; (3) total power constraint, i.e. the total
power allocate to a user should be less than maximum
power level; (4) peak power constraint, i.e. the power on
every sub-channel should be less than peak power level;
(5) uniform power allocation, i.e. the power allocated to

Received date: 07-08-2012
Corresponding author: XU Quan-sheng, E-mail: xqs@bupt.edu.cn
DOI: 10.1016/S1005-8885(13)60020-5
multiple sub-channels of a user should be the same.
Although the resource allocation in SC-FDMA system is
still a combinatorial optimization problem like in OFDMA
system, the restriction of adjacency makes the problem
harder to solve [23]. Furthermore, when considering the
practical constraint that perfect CSI cannot be obtained in
time-varying channel, the problem will become
prohibitively difficult.
Some resource allocation algorithms that consider the
resource allocation constraints in localized mode
SC-FDMA system have been proposed. In Ref. [4], some
greedy sub-optimal algorithms are proposed. In Ref. [2],
an optimal algorithm is developed, where the resource
allocation problem is formulated as a binary-integer
program (BIP) problem. Considering computational
complexity of the BIP, with the help of canonical duality
theory, the authors in Ref. [3] propose a polynomial-
complexity resource allocation framework. Moreover,
some resource allocation algorithms that consider
particular situation are proposed in Refs. [56]. In Ref. [5],
the authors propose a framework for energy efficient
resource allocation with synchronous hybrid automatic
repeat request (HARQ) constraint. In Ref. [6], a resource

8 The Journal of China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications 2013

allocation algorithm combined with user pairing scheme
are proposed. However, all aforementioned algorithms are
based on perfect CSI assumption, which is impractical,
especially in time-varying channel.
In this paper, an efficient resource allocation algorithm
is proposed with imperfect CSI assumption, which can
satisfy all the resource allocation constraints in LTE uplink
SC-FDMA system. Firstly, we formulate the resource
allocation problem as a mixed integer programming
problem. Then an efficient algorithm based on discrete
stochastic optimization is proposed to solve the problem.
Finally, simulation results are presented to demonstrate the
performance of the algorithm.
2 System model and problem formulation
2.1 System model
Consider a single cell LTE situation. In LTE system, 12
adjacent sub-carriers are grouped into a sub-channel
named resource block (RB). And system bandwidth is
divided into N orthogonal RBs. Assume that there are K
users scatter in the cell and
k
N with cardinality
k
N is
the set of RBs allocated to user k. When frequency domain
minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalizer is used at
receiver, the effective signal noise ratio (SNR) for user k
can be given as [3]
1
1
12
, , , , eff
1 , , , ,
1
1
12 1
k
k n i k n i
k
n N i k k n i k n i
P
N P

=
(
| |
(
=
|
|
+ (
\ .

(1)
where
, , k n i
P denotes the transmit power of user k on
sub-carrier i belonging to RB n;
, , k n i
represents the SNR.
In constant parameter channel,
, , k n i
can be simply
expressed as
2 2
, ,
| |
k n i
h . Where
, , k n i
h denotes the
channel gain,
2
is noise variance. However, in
time-varying channel the Doppler spread may cause serious
inter carrier interference (ICI), which will affect the SNR
calculation. The effect is approximated as [7]
( )
2
, ,
, , H 2 2
d s
| |
24
,
2
k n i
k n i
h
E
f T

=
`

)
(2)
where { } ( )
1
H
, 1 1 E x y x y

+ ,
d
f is the Doppler
frequency and
s
T is the symbol duration.
2.2 Problem formulation
In this paper, the objective of resource allocation is to
maximize weighted sum-rate subjecting to the resource
allocation constraints. Therefore the resource allocation
problem is formulated as
( )
( )
, ,
eff
Sum
,
1
12
max
, ,
1
peak
, ,
max lb 1
s.t. ,
, , ,
12
,
k n i k
k
k
K
k
k k
P N
k
k k n i
n N i
k
k n i
k
k j
BN
R
N
P P P k
P
P P k n i
N
N N k j

=
=

= +

=

`

=
)

(3)
where,
max
k
P and
peak
P are the maximum transmit power
of user k and peak power constraint of per sub-carrier,
respectively; ( ) ( )
1 2
min , max ,
k k
n N n N = = {
1
,
k
N n =
}
1 2 2
1,... 1, n n n + ;
k
denotes user weight chosen for
user k and defined as =1
k k
r , where
k
r denotes
average rate of user k. The first and second constraints in
Eq. (3) represent the total power constraint, peak power
constraint, and uniform power allocation. The third
constraint indicates the constraints of exclusivity and
adjacency.
3 Resource allocation with imperfect CSI
In our situation the weighted sum-rate is a
non-decreasing function of power, which can be easily
demonstrated by ( ) ( )
Sum , ,
0
k n i
R P > . Therefore, the
power allocation is designed that user can transmit at their
maximum power without violating the peak power
constraint. Then the resource allocation problem is reduced
to RB allocation
( )
eff
Sum

1
max lb 1
s.t. ,
k
K
k
k k
N
k
k j
BN
R
N
N N k j

= +

`

=
)

I
(4)
where
1
1
max
peak
, ,
12
eff
max
1
peak
, ,
min ,
12
1
1
12
1 min ,
12
k
k
k n i
k
k
n N i k k
k n i
k
P
P
N
N P
P
N

=

( | |

( |

\ . (
=
`
(
| |

( +
|

( \ .
)


(5)
Let the RB allocation solution be
{ }
, k n
K N
x

= X , where
,
=1
k n
x denotes RB n is allocated to user k; otherwise
,
=0
k n
x . When the system has N orthogonal RBs and K

Issue 2 XU Quan-sheng, et al. / Resource allocation algorithm in LTE uplink SC-FDMA system for time-varying 9

users ( N K ), there are totally
1
1
1
C C !
K
N K
P

=
=

possible solutions [2]. The set of all possible solutions is
given as { }
1 2
, , , ...
P
X = X X X . Define | | H X as the
channel gain matrix of solution X. Then, the problem of
RB allocation can be reformulated as
| | ( )
*
Sum
arg max
X X
R

= X H X (6)
where
*
X denotes the optimal solution.
For imperfect channel state, only the noisy estimate can
be obtained. Therefore, suppose that at iteration l, the
evolved Node B (eNodeB) obtains the estimate of channel
gain

[ ] l H , and selects a channel gain subset

[ , ] l H X for
solution X and then computes the relative noisy estimate of
the objective function ( )
Sum
, [ ] . r l H X If each
( )
Sum
, [ ] r l H X is an unbiased estimate of ( )
Sum
[ ] R H X ,
( )
Sum
, [ ] r l H X , 1, 2, ... l = is a sequence of i.i.d. random
variables [8]. Therefore, the problem of RB allocation
problem can be rewritten as
( ) { }
*
Sum
arg max E , [ ]
X X
r l

= X H X (7)
By the strong law of large numbers, the empirical average

( ) ( ) ( ) { }
Sum_ Sum Sum
1
[ ] 1 , [ ] , [ ]
L
L
l
r L r l E r l
=
=

H X H X H X
almost surely as L . Therefore to solve Eq. (7) an
inefficient method is using exhaustive-search (ES)
algorithm. That is, we firstly compute the

( )
Sum_
[ ]
L
r H X
for each , X X and then find

( )
*
Sum_
max [ ]
L
X X
r

= X H X .
In ES algorithm, for each solution, L estimation
objectives should be computed. Thus,
1
1
1
C C !
K
N K
O L

=
| |
|
\ .

operations should be conducted,

which causes enormous computational complexity. In this
paper, we propose a low computational complexity
algorithm based on discrete stochastic optimization [89],
which is named as proposed algorithm below. Assume
| |
1 1
, ,...,
P
= E e e e , where
p
e denotes 1 P vector with a
one in the p th situation and zeros elsewhere. At iteration
l, the 1 P probability vector | [ ] [ ,1], [ , 2],..., l l l =
| [ , ],..., [ , ] l p l P is updated, where [ , ] [0,1] l p
represents the state occupation probabilities of p and
[ , ] 1
p
l p =

. Let
( ) l
X be the solution chosen at the
iteration l. For notational simplicity, define a
sequence { } [ ] , l D where [ ]
p
l = D e if
( ) l
p
= X X ,
1, 2,..., p P .
The pseudo-code of the proposed algorithm is given as
1) Set 1 l , and eNodeB selects a solution
( ) 1
X X ,
and set
( ) 1
[1, ] 1 = X , [1, ] 0 = X for all
( ) 1
X X X .
2) For 1, 2, ... l = do
a) Given
( ) l
X at iteration time l and choose another

( )
( )
/
l
l
X X X uniformly. Each user estimates CSI and
feedbacks it to eNodeB, then the eNodeB computes
( )
( ) Sum
, [ ]
l
r l H X ,

( )
( ) Sum
, [ ]
l
r l H X .
b) If
( )
( )

( )
( ) Sum Sum
, [ ] , [ ]
l
l
r l r l < H X H X , sets
( ) 1 l +
= X

( ) l
X , otherwise sets
( ) ( ) 1 l l +
= X X .
c) Then, the eNodeB updates all the solution occupation
probabilities as follow:
( ) [ ] [ 1] [ ] l l l = + e D (8)
[ 1] [ ] [ ] [ ] l l l l + = + e (9)
{ }
l
[ 1] [ 1] [ ] [ ]
T
l l v l l

+ = + + e J (10)
( ) [ 1] 1 [ ] [ ] [ ]; [0] 0 l l l l + = + = J J e J (11)
d) If
( ) ( ) 1 *
[ 1, ] [ 1, ]
l l
l l
+
+ > + X X , the eNodeB sets
( ) ( ) 1 1 * l l + +
= X X , otherwise sets
( ) ( ) 1 * l l +
= X X .
e) Set 1 l l + .
End for.
3) Output the RB allocation solution of the last iteration.
In Eq. (10),
l
v denotes the learning rate. The
expression of { } Y

denotes the projection of Y onto the

interval [ , ] + .
The proposed algorithm has low computational
complexity. In the algorithm, only one of the solutions is
chosen at each iteration. Then compute its objective
function, and compare it with the objective value of the
solution selected in previous iteration. Therefore, the
operations complexity will not more than ( ) 2 O LK .
Furthermore, the algorithm also has the characteristic of
fast convergence. To prove the convergence, we firstly
present a sufficient condition based on Ref. [9].
Lemma 1 (Sufficient convergence conditions) The
proposed algorithm converges to the global maximum of
the objective function, if the independent observations
( )
*
Sum
, [ ] r l H X ,

( ) Sum
, [ ] r l H X , ( )
Sum
, [ ] r l H X meet the
following conditions

10 The Journal of China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications 2013

( ) ( ) { }
*
Sum Sum
Pr , [ ] , [ ] r l r l > > H X H X
( ) ( ) { }
*
Sum Sum
Pr , [ ] , [ ] r l r l > H X H X (12)
( )

( ) { }
*
Sum Sum
Pr , [ ] , [ ] r l r l > > H X H X
( )

( ) { } Sum Sum
Pr , [ ] , [ ] r l r l > H X H X (13)
Then the sequence
{ }
( ) l
X is a homogeneous irreducible
and aperiodic Markov chain with state space X , and it
spends more time on state
*
X than other states [8].
Relying on the sufficient convergence conditions, the
convergence of the algorithm can be proved as following.
Theorem 1 (Global convergence). If the iteration is
sufficient, the algorithm converges to the global optimum.
Proof Suppose the mean and variance of the
objective function are ( ) { }
( )
Sum
Sum [ ]
, [ ]
r
E r l =
H X
H X and
( ) { }
( )
Sum
2
Sum [ ]
, [ ] ,
r
V r l =
H X
H X respectively. As in
Ref. [9], the estimated objective value can be
approximately regarded as the Gaussian distribution,
i.e., ( )
( ) ( )
( )
Sum Sum
2
Sum [ ] [ ]
, [ ] , .
r r
r l N

H X H X
H X Then if
( ) ( )
Sum Sum
, [ ] , [ ] ,
p q
r l r l > H X H X we can get
( ) ( ) Sum Sum
[ ] [ ]
p q
r r
>
H X H X
. Therefore, the condition in
Eq. (12) can be rewritten as
( ) ( ) { } Sum Sum
Pr , [ ] , [ ] 0
p q
r l r l > > X H H X
( ) ( ) { } Sum Sum
Pr , [ ] , [ ] 0
q p
r l r l > H X H X (14)
The result of two Gaussian variables subtraction still
keeps the Gaussian property. Therefore, the inequality of
Eq. (14) is equivalent to
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
( ) { }
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
( ) { }
Sum Sum Sum Sum
Sum Sum Sum Sum
2 2
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
2 2
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Pr , 0
Pr , 0
p q p q
q p p q
r r r r
r r r r
N
N


+ > >
+ >
H X
H X
H X H X H X
H X H X H X
(15)
We know
( ) ( ) ( ) {
Sum Sum Sum
[ ] [ ] [ ]
max , ,
p p q
r r r
=
H X H X H X

( ) }
Sum
[ ]
s
r

H X
, which implies
( ) ( )
( )
Sum Sum
[ ] [ ]
p q
r r
>
H X H X

( )
(
( )
)
Sum Sum
[ ] [ ]
q p
r r

H X H X
. Therefore, condition in Eq. (12)
is satisfied due to the same variance.
Similar to the condition in Eq. (12), the condition in
Eq. (13) can also be proved. Therefore, the convergence of
the algorithm is proved.

4 Simulation results and discussions
In this section, we study a system with 6 N = RBs and
2.6 GHz carrier frequency. Assume that 4 K = users
uniformly distribute in the cell. The path loss is
100.8+20lg dB d , where d is the distance of users to the
eNodeB. The time-varying channel is modeled as that in
Ref. [8]. To simplify the analysis we assume that the
max
k
P
of different users is same, and
max
200 mW
k
P = . The peak
power constraint of each sub-carrier is
peak
10 mW P = .
The noise power spectrum density is 150 dBm Hz . Other
simulation parameters such as symbol duration are set
according to LTE standard. Furthermore, a resource
allocation algorithm [3] based on perfect CSI is also
simulated, which named as perfect CSI.
Fig. 1 shows the convergence performance of different
algorithms in time-invariant channel. We can observe that as
the number of iterations increases the obtaining
weighted-sum rate of both exhaustive-search and proposed
algorithm converge to that of the perfect CSI. This is
because the estimated objective value is an unbiased
estimate of the objective function, as the number of
iterations increases, the performance of ES algorithm and
the proposed algorithm approximate to the optimal solution
by the strong law of large numbers. Furthermore, we can
also find that the proposed algorithm can achieve desirable
performance just like ES algorithm.

Fig. 1 The convergence performance of different algorithms
Fig. 2 shows the tracking channel capability of different
algorithms ( 600 L = ). From the Fig. 2, we can find that
the weighted-sum rate is varying due to the time-varying
environment. And the tracking channel capability of both
proposed and ES algorithms become poor with increasing
of users speed. This can be explained that with the
increase of users speed, the channel changes more quickly

Issue 2 XU Quan-sheng, et al. / Resource allocation algorithm in LTE uplink SC-FDMA system for time-varying 11

and becomes more difficult to track. Furthermore, since
the lower computational complexity and similar
convergence performance, as is illustrated in Fig. 2, the
proposed algorithm has better capability of tracking
channel especially when users speed is high.

Fig. 2 The tracking channel capability of different algorithms
5 Conclusions
In this paper, we study the problem of resource
allocation in LTE uplink SC-FDMA system with imperfect
CSI assumption. Firstly, the resource allocation problem is
formulated as a mixed integer programming problem.
Then an efficient algorithm based on discrete stochastic
optimization is proposed to solve the problem, which has
been proved to be able to converge to the optimal solution.
Finally, simulation results show that the proposed
algorithm has desirable system performance.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology of the Peoples Republic of China
(2011ZX03001-007-03), the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (61271182), and the National Natural Science Funds of China
for Young Scholar (61001115).
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(Editor: ZHANG Ying)