A multicarrier allocation (MCA) scheme for variable-rate 3Gwireless systems

High spectral efficiency and flexible data rate access are the main focus o f future wireless networks. Multiple channel allocation schemes have the po tential of achieving this goal. By assigning multiple slots and/or multiple carriers to one user, it is possible to provide a flexible data rate with quite low complexity. In this article we propose a simple allocation scheme where each user is assigned a fixed group of carriers. These carriers are adaptively used depending on the interference situation within the system. The system performance in terms of average throughput is investigated for t wo different types of allocation schemes: a fully centralized scheme and a distributed one that uses frequency diversity as a mean of improving the us er link quality. The obtained results show that both schemes improve the sy stem throughput over single carrier allocation without affecting the capaci ty of the system in terms of number of users per cell.