A Resource Allocation Method for Multi-Cell Cellular Networks with System Capacity and QoE Tradeoff

The extensive deployment of base stations causes severe inter-cell interference in cellular communications, which significantly impairs the communication experience of users located at cell edges. Recently, an increasing number of scholars are dedicated to research radio resource allocation from a multi-cell perspective. Nevertheless, there remains a significant scope for further research in this domain. We propose a method for joint spectrum-power allocation in multi-cell cellular networks, while taking the delicate balance between system capacity and user quality of experience (QoE) into account. We first constructed a system model incorporating partial channel state information (CSI) that closely aligns with practical application scenarios. In contrast to conventional studies, the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) indicator, serving as an evaluation metric for QoE, is integrated into the objective function to avoid an unguided emphasis on maximizing system capacity. The resource allocation problem is a multi-objective optimization problem, which has been proven to be NP-hard and non-convex, making it difficult to obtain an optimal solution. Therefore, an improved Differential Evolution (IDE) algorithm is proposed, characterized by initializing the population through the Hill Climbing (HC) Algorithm and adaptively adjusting the crossover probability, to address this problem. Simulation results indicate that our proposed resource allocation method is capable of achieving a substantial system capacity while simultaneously attaining a high degree of user satisfaction.