Performance Evaluation on Resource Allocation with Carrier Aggregation in LTE Cellular Networks

Because of a significant increase in heterogeneous user demands, carrier aggregation has been widely proposed to provide higher data rates. Due to a variety of carrier aggregation implementations, the question is what the efficient resource allocation with carrier aggregation could be. Therefore, in this paper, a homogeneous cellular network is modelled using a system-level simulation of the downlink. The resource allocation, including component carrier selection and resource block scheduling, is investigated under different carrier aggregation types and operating frequency bands. The performance is then evaluated in terms of user throughput. By using the proper combination of carrier selection and scheduling, not only can the load across all carriers be balanced but also higher throughput is obtained. However, the use of resource allocation with carrier aggregation should be adapted since there is a trade-off of user performance and implementation complexity.