Selective Periodic Component Carrier Assignment Technique in LTE and LTE-A Systems

Abstract

Internet usage over mobile devices is on the rise. The bandwidth demand for mobile Internet access is also increasing with the number of mobile users. To answer users' demand, carrier aggregation is proposed in LTE-A system. In carrier aggregation, the best available one or more component carriers of each band are assigned to each user to provide efficient services. Several works have been reported in the literature on mandatory and periodic component carrier assignment methods. Although the previous works, especially periodic component carrier assignment methods, have significantly improved performance of LTE and LTE-A systems, many limitations still exist. One limitation of previous works is that data transfer is interrupted during periodic component carrier assignment operation which can decrease performance of the system. Therefore, in this paper, selective periodic component carrier assignment technique which allows continues data transfer during periodic carrier assignment operations is proposed. Results show that the proposed technique increases throughput rate up to 25% and decreases average delay time up to 35%.