WO2011136958A1

WO2011136958A1 - Method and apparatus for allocating resource blocks in a wireless communication network

Info

Publication number: WO2011136958A1
Application number: PCT/US2011/032856
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ivan N. Vukovic; Rajeev Agrawal; Suresh Kalyanasundaram; Rapeepat Ratasuk; Timothy J. Wilson
Original assignee: Motorola Mobility, Inc.
Priority date: 2010-04-30
Filing date: 2011-04-18
Publication date: 2011-11-03
Also published as: JP5541411B2; JP2013526128A

Abstract

A method and apparatus to allocate resource blocks includes determining the number of available resource blocks on an uplink channel (130) and determining the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks on the uplink channel. In addition, the method includes calculating a resource block load of the uplink channel for at least one user equipment (120) on the uplink channel wherein the resource block load is the sum of minimum of the resource block in a queue for the user equipment and the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks for the user equipment on the uplink channel. The method also includes allocating the minimum of the resource block in the queue for the user equipment and the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks when the resource block load is greater than or equal to the number of available resource blocks.

Description

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ALLOCATING RESOURCE BLOCKS

IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK

Field of the Invention

[0001] The present invention relates generally to allocating resource blocks in a wireless communication network, and in particular to a method of scheduling and resource allocation of resource blocks in the uplink of an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) wireless communication network. Background

[0002] In OFDM wireless communication networks, mobile stations, or user equipment, are scheduled on the uplink using a number of different factors using an uplink scheduler that is a stand alone device in the network or that is a part of another network entity. These factors include the power available to the user equipment on the uplink, the path loss for the user equipment, the number of available resource blocks and the noise and interference measured at the cell site. The scheduler determines which mobile station or user equipment is next to be scheduled for the uplink. The scheduler then determines which resource blocks are to be allocated to the mobile station, what modulation and coding scheme will be used and what the power will be for each resource block.

[0003] Different wireless communication system standards use various scheduling techniques to allocate the resource blocks on the uplink. In one embodiment, modulation can coding scheme (MCS) and power per resource block are kept constant. This can provide high spectral efficiency (bits/resource block) but in some cases could cause wasted resources if the system is at a low load. In another embodiment, each user equipment can be scheduled at its lowest MCS which implies that at maximum transmit power a large number of resources could be allocated per user equipment. This means low spectral efficiency with no wasted resources at a low load. Thus, there is a need for a scheduler that allocates resources combining the approaches above such that optimal behavior is achieved. Brief Description of the Figures

[0004] The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views and which together with the detailed description below are incorporated in and form part of the specification, serve to further illustrate various embodiments and to explain various principles and advantages all in accordance with the present invention.

[0005] FIG. 1 is example wireless communications system that utilize the principles described and are in accordance with some embodiments of the invention.

[0006] FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of uplink scheduling.

[0007] FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of calculating the resource block load in accordance with embodiments of the invention.

[0008] FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of allocating resource blocks in accordance with embodiments of the invention.

[0009] FIG. 5 is an illustration of using a transmit block size table for the determining the number of resource blocks for a modulation and coding scheme in accordance with embodiments of the invention.

[0010] Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.

Detailed Description

[0011] Before describing in detail embodiments that are in accordance with the present invention, it should be observed that the embodiments reside primarily in combinations of method steps and apparatus components related to allocate resource blocks in a wireless communication network. Accordingly, the apparatus components and method steps have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.

[0012] In this document, relational terms such as first and second, top and bottom, and the like may be used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. The terms "comprises," "comprising," or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. An element proceeded by "comprises ...a" does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence of additional identical elements in the process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises the element.

[0013] It will be appreciated that embodiments of the invention described herein may be comprised of one or more conventional processors and unique stored program instructions that control the one or more processors to implement, in conjunction with certain non-processor circuits, some, most, or all of the functions of allocating resource blocks in a wireless communication network described herein. The non-processor circuits may include, but are not limited to, a radio receiver, a radio transmitter, signal drivers, clock circuits, power source circuits, and user input devices. As such, these functions may be interpreted as steps of a method to perform resource block allocation. Alternatively, some or all functions could be implemented by a state machine that has no stored program instructions, or in one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), in which each function or some combinations of certain of the functions are implemented as custom logic. Of course, a combination of the two approaches could be used. Thus, methods and means for these functions have been described herein. Further, it is expected that one of ordinary skill, notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choices motivated by, for example, available time, current technology, and economic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principles disclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such software instructions and programs and ICs with minimal experimentation.

[0014] In an embodiment, a method is performed that calculates a resource block load for a user equipment on an uplink connection. The resource block load is calculated by setting the queue size for the user equipment, determining a number of resource blocks for the modulation and coding scheme of the user equipment from the power level and the number of resource blocks for the queue size using the number of resource blocks for the modulation and coding scheme. In addition, the method includes allocating the calculated resource block load for the user equipment.

[0015] In another embodiment, a method allocates resource blocks. The method includes determining the number of available resource blocks on an uplink channel and determining the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks on the uplink channel. In addition, the method includes calculating a resource block load of the uplink channel for at least one user equipment on the uplink channel wherein the resource block load is the sum of minimum of the resource block in a queue for the user equipment and the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks for the user equipment on the uplink channel. Based on this load determination a resource block allocation is made depending on whether there is a heavy load or a low load.. The method also includes allocating the minimum of the resource block in the queue for the user equipment and the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks when the resource block load is greater than or equal to the number of available resource blocks. The number resource blocks in the queue under a heavy load situation is the minimum of N_MCS and NQ as defined below Moreover, the method includes allocating the number of resource blocks in the queue across the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks when the resource block load is less than the number of available resource blocks. Thus, in the low load situation, the resource blocks in the queue is the minimum of NQ_LL and N_TBS, as defined below and which are different values from that in the high load situation.

[0016] The present invention may be more fully described with reference to the figures. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a wireless communication system 100 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Communication system 100 includes a user equipment (UE) 120, such as but not limited to a cellular telephone, a radiotelephone, a smartphone or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), personal computer (PC), or laptop computer equipped for wireless communications. Communication system 100 further includes a base station (BS) 110 that provides communication services to users' equipment, such as UE 120, residing in a coverage area of the RAN via a radio link. Radio link comprises an uplink 130 and a downlink (not shown) that each comprises multiple physical and logical communication channels, including multiple traffic channels and multiple signaling channels. The multiple channels for the uplink 130 can include a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) and a Physical Uplink Shared Chanel (PUSCH).

[0017] Each of BS 110 and UE 120 and includes a respective processor 112,

122, such as one or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), combinations thereof or such other devices known to those having ordinary skill in the art, which processor is configured to execute the functions described herein as being executed by the BS and UE, respectively. Each of BS 110 and UE 120 further includes a respective at least one memory device 114, 124 that may comprise random access memory (RAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and/or read only memory (ROM) or equivalents thereof, that maintain data and programs that may be executed by the associated processor and that allow the BS and UE to perform all functions necessary to operate in communication system 100. Each of BS 110 and UE 120 also includes a respective radio frequency (RF) transmitter 118, 128 for transmitting signals over radio link 130 and a respective RF receiver 116, 126 for receiving signals via radio link 130. The transmitter 118, 128 and receiver 116, 126 are often referred to collectively as a transceiver.

[0018] Communication system 100 further includes a scheduler 102 that is coupled to BS 110 and that performs the scheduling functions described herein. Scheduler 102 includes a processor 104 such as one or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), combinations thereof or such other devices known to those having ordinary skill in the art, which processor is configured to execute the functions described herein as being executed by the scheduler. Scheduler 102 further includes an at least one memory device 106 that may comprise random access memory (RAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and/or read only memory (ROM) or equivalents thereof, that maintains data and programs that may be executed by the associated processor and that allow the scheduler to perform all functions necessary to operate in communication system 100. While scheduler 102 is depicted as an element separate from BS 110, in other embodiments of the invention, scheduler 102 may be implemented in the BS, and more particularly by processor 112 of the BS based on programs maintained by the at least one memory device 114 of the BS.

[0019] The functionality described herein as being performed by scheduler

102, BS 110, and UE 120 is implemented with or in software programs and instructions stored in the respective at least one memory device 106, 114, 124 associated with the scheduler, BS, and UE and executed by the processor 104, 112, 122 associated with the scheduler, BS, and UE. However, one of ordinary skill in the art realizes that the embodiments of the present invention alternatively may be implemented in hardware, for example, integrated circuits (ICs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), and the like, such as ASICs implemented in one or more of the scheduler, BS, and UE. Based on the present disclosure, one skilled in the art will be readily capable of producing and implementing such software and/or hardware without undo experimentation.

[0020] In order for BS 110 and UE 120 to engage in a communication session, BS 110 and UE 120 each operates in accordance with known wireless telecommunications standards. Preferably, communication system 100 is a 3GPP LTE (Third Generation Partnership Project Long Term Evolution) communication system that operates in accordance with the 3 GPP LTE standards. To ensure compatibility, radio system parameters and call processing procedures are specified by the standards, including call processing steps that are executed by the BS and UE. However, those of ordinary skill in the art realize that communication system 100 may be any wireless communication system that allocates radio link resources, such as a 3 GPP UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) communication system, a CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) communication system, a CDMA 2000 communication system, a Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) communication system, a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) communication system, or a communication system that operates in accordance with any one of various OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technologies, such as a Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) communication system or a communication system that operates in accordance with any one of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802. xx standards, for example, the 802.11, 802.15, 802.16, or 802.20 standards.

[0021] Turning to FIG. 2, a flow chart 200 describing the scheduling and resource allocation for the uplink in the OFDM is shown. In particular, the flow chart 200 illustrates a determination of the user equipment that will be allocated according to the processes and procedures described herein. The process shown will be described with reference to the scheduler 102, but it is understood that some of the steps and procedures described may be performed by other entities within the RAN and the relevant data and information provided to the scheduler 102 as it allocates the resource blocks for the uplink channels, i.e., PUSCH. To begin, the uplink scheduling begins by calculating 202 a noise and interference values for the channels and for the user equipment be scheduled for the channel 130. An eligible set of user equipment is defined 204 wherein each member of the eligible set of user equipment has a queue size of greater than zero thereby designating that that user equipment requires the use of the channel. In addition, the eligible set of user equipment will include all user equipment that requires retransmission of data over the uplink channel 130 for any reason. Those user equipment that require retransmission are given priority over other user equipment allocations. Thus, for the user equipment requiring retransmission, resources, including resource blocks are reserved 208. In certain cases, retransmissions may be blocked even though they are prioritized for allocation, because the same set of resource blocks used during the fresh transmission are not available in the current sub-frame. In such cases, the blocked retransmissions are placed with transmissions of user equipment that has not been previously allocated. [0022] For new transmissions and blocked retransmissions, channel measurements are calculated 208. These channel measurements can include path loss estimates, receive signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) estimates, SINR corrections, throughput per resource block, filter throughput and proportional fair (PF) metric calculations. Other measurements and calculations can be determined as well. Using these metrics, the user equipment that are to be scheduled and allocated are sorted 210 by first listing the user equipment requiring retransmissions because of blocking and then in a descending order according to the PF metric. For each sorted user equipment, a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) hashing is calculated 212. Resource block allocation and scheduling can then be performed 214 for the user equipment that pass PDCCH hashing. The process ends at step 216.

[0023] As a part of resource block allocation and scheduling, a resource block load is required. Resource block load is calculated as a sum of resource block loads of all eligible user equipment that have passed step 216 (i.e. all eligible user equipment that have passed PDCCH hashing.) FIG. 3 illustrates a flow chart 300 that describes calculating resource block loads for user equipment that has passed 216.

[0024] For each user equipment that has passed step 216, a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) index is determined 304. The MCS index is determined using the SINR calculation described above and an SNR to MCS tables that are provided according to the communications standards. From the MCS index, a transmit block size index (TBS) T is determined 306 using tables that are provided according to the communications standard. A two dimensional array is determined using TBS as the first dimension and number of resources as the second dimension. An example of such a two dimensional array is shown in FIG. 5 and will be described in more detail below.

[0025] The number of resources blocks is then determined 310. In an embodiment, the queue size Q for a user equipment is determined. N_MCS is the number of resource block for which the power per resource block, WRB, can be maintained for all the resource blocks allocated for the user equipment. As is understood, WRB is obtained from Fractional Power Control Rule, which is a part of communication network standards, that specifies the transmit power per resource block as a function of the user equipment path loss, among other things. In addition, the number of resource blocks NQ that can drain user equipment queue size Q is determined. The number N_MCS is calculated by calculating the floor of the maximum transmit power for the user equipment P_MA_X over the power of the available resource blocks. As pointed out N_MCS represents the maximum number of resources that a user equipment can use while keeping the transmit power per resource block at WRB and also having the total transmit power less than P_MA_X- NQ is the number of resource blocks that can at most be equal to N_Mcs- Q can be defined as the number of resource blocks that the user needs to drain its queue size Q with the limitation that the number of resource blocks can not exceed predetermined value N_MCS- In a formal way, the NQ is determined from the minimum of resource block j, which is greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to N_Mcs and the TBS value T of the resource block j, which is greater than or equal to the queue size Q. In an embodiment, if TBS T for N_MCS is less than the Q then the NQ is equal to N_MCS- [0026] These methods of providing N_MCS and NQ provide a method of setting the target number of resource blocks for maximizing the FPC spectral efficiency of the channel. Thus, the number of resource blocks N_MCS can be set as the target number of resource blocks. Typically, algorithms attempt to allocated more resource blocks beyond the value N_MCS and search for more bits to send. This has been determined to be spectrally inefficient since a lower number of bits is sent per resource block. Setting the number of resource blocks to be N_Mcs or less, the number of resource bits allocated per resource block is constant since the transmit power per resource block and thus the MCS is kept constant. When the number of resource blocks is greater than N_MCS the number of resource bits allocated per resource block starts to decrease due to a decrease in transmit power per resource block, and this leads to a lower spectral efficiency, i.e. bits/Hz. As the loads in the uplink increase, more spectral efficiency is desired to optimize the total bandwidth on the uplink.

[0027] With the resource block loads for each of the user equipment that has not been allocated resources yet, it is possible to allocate the remaining available resource blocks. FIG. 4 illustrates a flow chart 400 that describes allocating the resource blocks to the user equipment in the sorted queue. The process starts by selecting 402 the next user equipment that is to be allocated from the list in a decreasing order according to the PF metric. It should be noted that PF metric is one possible metric and other metrics are within the framework of the principles described. In addition, the number of resource blocks NAV_L that are available for allocation on the PUSCH is determined 404. If there are no available resource blocks available is stopped 406. Otherwise, the largest number of contiguous unallocated resource blocks N_{RB M}A_X on the PUSCH is determined 408. In addition, the resource block load RB_LOA_D for all the user equipment that were not assigned resources yet. RB_LOA_D is determined 410 by summing the minimum of the NQ and N_{RB M}A_X for all of those user equipment, where NQ is computed as shown in FIG. 3.. RB_LOA_D is a measure of the number of resource blocks that for the outstanding non-allocated user equipment in the queue can occupy if the only restriction were N_{RB M}A_X-

[0028] In the next step, the RB_LOA_D is compared 412 to the NAV_L to consider the loading of the uplink channel, where NAV_L is the total number of resource blocks available for the resource allocation of user equipment. If RB_LOA_D is greater than NAV_L, the uplink channel and the user equipment is considered to be in a heavy load conditions because the number will fill up more resource blocks than is available. In heavy load conditions, N_RB*, which is the number of resource blocks to be allocated is taken to be minimum of the NQ and N_{RB M}A_X- Thus, under heavy lead conditions, the number of resource blocks provided to the user equipment being allocated is based on the spectrally efficiency resource bock assignment, in which power per resource block is maximized according to the Fractional Power Control rule, subject to maximum number of contiguous resource blocks available N_{RB M}A_X- This is either the number of available resource blocks, N_{RB M}A_X or the number of resource blocks needed NQ.

[0029] In the low load situation, the outstanding user equipment requires less resource blocks than the total number of available resource blocks. It is determined how many resource blocks are required and the power allocated to each of the resource blocks. To do so, the number of resource blocks N_TBs that maximize the TBS amongst all feasible resource blocks is determined. The feasible resource blocks all those resource blocks that have an estimated SINR that is greater than the target SINR for the user equipment. In addition, the minimum number of resource blocks NQ_LL that can accommodate the user equipment's queue size amongst all the available resource blocks for the TBS is determined. In other words, the number of resource blocks that have an estimated SINR greater than the target SINR. Thus, the allocation in the low load situation continues to search for the number of resource blocks to be allocated by increasing the number of resource blocks such to equal the maximum TBS. In the low load situation, the N_RB* is determined to the minimum of the determined NQLL and N_RB MAX-

[0030] The power is then spread across this number of resource blocks such that constant power can be maintained across the resource blocks because.. This also provides as many resources as possible to reach the maximum number of total number of bits that can be sent fro this user equipment, TBS. In addition, while the number of resource blocks is increased beyond N_MCS the SNR for the user equipment decreases. This causes the MCS level to drop but not below the minimum MCS level required by the user equipment. If the minimum MCS level is reached the number of resources is not further increased. More bandwidth is therefore provided to the user equipment in the low load situation because the capacity is linearly proportional to the bandwidth and logarithmically to the SNR. Under these conditions, it is determined to be better to maximize the bandwidth as compared to the SNR assuming fixed transmit power budget at the user equipment. Thus, it is determined that the number of resource blocks can increase beyond N_Mcs as long as the number of bits that can be transmitted (TBS) increases and using he same amount of total power.

[0031] After the N_RB* is determined in either of the heavy load or low load situation, the process searches 414 for the resources blocks to be allocated. The process searches for the smallest set of contiguous resource blocks available in the uplink channel that is greater than N_RB*. After the resource blocks are allocated for the user equipment, that user equipment is removed 416 from the list. If the set is empty, the process stops 418. Otherwise, the next user equipment is selected and the allocation process continues as described.

[0032] FIG. 5 is an illustration of a TBS table 500 that is used to determine the number of resource blocks to be allocated on the uplink. On the horizontal axis, the number of resource blocks j are shown. On the vertical axis, the TBS T for the resource block and MCS pair is shown. It is understood that the certain pairs [t][j] pairs are not available for consideration because the estimated SINR is less than the target SINR for the user equipment. These squares are shaded. It is noted that determined values are illustrated on the horizontal axis including N_MCS and NQ_LL- The squares bordering the shaded region are each candidates for maximizing the TBS index for the corresponding number of resource blocks. Square 502 corresponds to the largest number of resource blocks, N_Mcs that is possible at the highest feasible TBS index T in the heavy load situation. Thus, N_RB* is equal to N_MCS if the queue size is not a limit, otherwise the queue size could determine the number of resources to be smaller than NMCS since the scheduler will not waste resources. In the low load situations, the resource block size can be increased past N_Mcs by considering the T" and T'. Square 506 corresponds to the largest TBS size for the same total UE power. Square 504 corresponds to the smallest number of resource blocks that drains the queue size for the uplink channel.

[0033] In an embodiment, the code can be optimized using the principles shown in FIG. 5. In a low load situation, the maximum number of resource blocks that can be allocated per TBS T is shown as the number of resource blocks 502-508 and other squares where the estimated SINR is greater than the target SINR. Each of these squares are searched by beginning with square 508. In square 508, the number of resource blocks is maximized by either using the largest number of contiguously available resource blocks or because further increasing the number of resource blocks would reduce MCS below the level of the lowest available MCS. After calculated the number of resource blocks 508, the analysis continues to look at other available [t][j] pairs, e.g. 502, 504, 506, and determine if the number of bits that can be transmitted, i.e., transport block size for allocation is greater than or equal to the number in square 508 at which point the search would stop and the resources would be allocated.

[0034] The principles discussed can be understood in an example of the allocation of resource blocks. A set of user equipment is determined. The set of user equipment include those user equipment in which retransmissions are required and those that have fresh transmissions. These user equipment are ordered according to a priority metric where retransmissions are prioritized first. In some cases retransmissions would have a simplified search since the number of resources and MCS might be predefined. If it is not possible to allocate the predefined number of resource blocks to the retransmission the scheduler might search for a lower number of resource blocks with the same TBS value. Retransmissions are followed by the fresh transmission in a descending order of the priority metric. In addition, the number of available resource blocks on the uplink are determined as well as the largest number of contiguous resource blocks on the uplink. It is then determined for the selected user equipment whether the user equipment should be handled in a heavy load or a low load situation as described above. When in the heavy load situation, the user equipment is assigned the minimum of resource blocks N_RB* from NQ, N_MCS and R_{B M}A_X- Using FIG. 5, N_RB* in the heavy load situation is associated with N_Mcs and thus square 502 is determined to be the number of resource blocks and corresponding TBS T. With these values, the uplink channel is reviewed to allocate the appropriate number of contiguous resource blocks to the selected user equipment. The next user equipment in the set is then selected.

[0035] For the next user equipment, the same process is performed. In the low load situation, the N_RB* is determined between NQ_LL, N_TBS and N_{RB M}A_X as described. Using FIG. 5, the number of resource blocks can be increased such that the power can be spread across more resource blocks to increase the transport block size and user throughput. Thus, squares 504, 506 or 508 can be selected and the appropriate number of resource blocks allocated for the user equipment.

[0036] In some schedulers additional information such as quality of the channel for individual resource blocks or group of resource blocks might be known. Those schedulers (referred to as Frequency Selective Schedulers) utilize this information to schedule user equipment in resource blocks which are best for them and optimizing overall capacity of the systems. It is possible that not all the user equipment will have this detailed channel information per resource block such as it is in the system described here. For those users we would use the same resource allocation policy as described above. [0037] As it was described above, the approach of resource allocation in low load attempts to give a larger TBS allocation at the expense of more resources assigned at lower spectral efficiency than with resources up to N_MCS- In some cases the cell edge users which are experiencing low throughput (below a threshold) due to limited transmit power and high path loss (above a certain threshold) could be assigned resources according to low load rules even though the actual measured resource load is high in order to boost their throughput. The increase in resource blocks beyond N_Mcs in these cases could be limited by a threshold number of resource blocks.

[0038] In the foregoing specification, specific embodiments of the present invention have been described. However, one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the present invention as set forth in the claims below. Accordingly, the

specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense, and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of present invention. The benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element(s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential features or elements of any or all the claims. The invention is defined solely by the appended claims including any amendments made during the pendency of this application and all equivalents of those claims as issued.

Claims

We claim:

1. A method comprising:

calculating a resource block load for a user equipment on an uplink connection, wherein the resource block load is calculated by setting the queue size for the user equipment, determining a number of resource blocks for the modulation and coding scheme of the user equipment from the power level and the number of resource blocks for the queue size using the number of resource blocks for the modulation and coding scheme, and by performing the same calculations for the other user equipments that have not yet been allocated resource blocks;

allocating the calculated resource block load for the user equipment.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the number of resource blocks for the modulation and coding scheme is determined using a maximum power for resource block and a power of the resource block as a function of the user equipment path loss.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the number of resource blocks for the modulation and coding scheme is the number of resource blocks that will maintain the power per resource block.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising setting the number of resource block target for maximizing the spectral efficiency of the uplink channel.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining the number of available resource blocks on an uplink channel;

determine the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks on the uplink channel; calculating a resource block load of the uplink channel for at least one user equipment on the uplink channel wherein the resource block load is the sum of minimum of the resource block needed to drain out the bits in a queue for the user equipment and the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks for the user equipment on the uplink channel; allocate the minimum of the resource block in the queue for the user equipment and the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks when the resource block load is greater than or equal to the number of available resource blocks, and

allocate the number of resource blocks in the queue across the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks when the resource block load is less than the number of available resource blocks.

A method comprising:

determining the number of available resource blocks on an uplink channel;

determining the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks on the uplink channel;

calculating a resource block load of the uplink channel for at least one user equipment on the uplink channel wherein the resource block load is the sum of minimum of the resource block in a queue for the user equipment and the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks for the user equipment on the uplink channel;

allocating the minimum of the resource block in the queue for the user equipment and the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks when the user equipment is in a heavy load, and

allocating the number of resource blocks in the queue across the maximum number of contiguous unallocated number of resource blocks when the user equipment is in a low load.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising calculating a resource block load for a user equipment on an uplink connection, wherein the resource block load is calculated by setting the queue size for the user equipment, determining a number of resource blocks for the modulation and coding scheme of the user equipment from the power level and the number of resource blocks for the queue size using the number of resource blocks for the modulation and coding scheme.

8. The method of claim 6 further comprising allocating the calculated resource block load for the user equipment.

9. The method of claim 6 further comprising searching for the smallest set of contiguous resource blocks on the uplink available for the allocated number of resource blocks.

10. The method of claim 6 wherein determining the number of resource blocks in the queue includes a minimum number of resource blocks that accommodates the user equipment queue size amongst all feasible pairs of transmit block size and resource block size pairs.