Relay Selection and Subcarrier-Pair Based Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation for Multirelay Cooperative OFDMA Networks

Energy-efficient resource allocation is investigated for a relay-based multiuser cooperation orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) uplink system with amplify-and-forward (AF) protocol for all relays. The objective is to maximize the total energy efficiency (EE) of the uplink system with consideration of some practical limitations, such as the individual power constraint for the users and relays and the quality of service (QoS) for every user. We formulate an energy-efficient resource allocation problem that seeks joint optimization of subcarrier pairing, relay selection, subcarrier assignment, and power allocation. Unlike previous optimization throughput models, we transform the considered EE problem in fractional form into an equivalent optimal problem in subtractive form, which is solved by using dual decomposition and subgradient methods. To reduce computation costs, we propose two low-complexity suboptimal schemes. Numerical studies are conducted to evaluate the EE of the proposed algorithms.