Priority-based subcarrier allocation algorithm for maximal network connectivity in 5G networks

With the widespread adoption of wireless technology, there has been a significant surge in the number of devices seeking wireless connectivity over the past decade. To meet the extensive demand for high-data-rate wireless connectivity, the fifth-generation (5G) cellular network plays a pivotal role. 5G cellular network aims to support a large number of applications with ultra-high data rates by maximizing device connectivity while satisfying quality of service (QoS) requirements. In this paper, we present an innovative priority-based subcarrier allocation (PSA) algorithm to address the challenge of maximizing connectivity in 5G new radio (5G NR) networks. Initially, we formulate the connectivity maximization problem as a subcarrier allocation problem by considering three key parameters: bandwidth requirement, waiting time, and energy level of user devices. The objective of the formulated problem is to optimally allocate subcarriers to multiple users in order to maximize connectivity while maintaining QoS requirements. To address the problem, we propose the PSA algorithm that prioritizes bandwidth, waiting time, and energy parameters using the R-method. To accommodate the network scenarios, we develop three variants of the PSA algorithm—PSA-1, PSA-2, and PSA-3. These variants allocate subcarriers based on the priority-based score of user. We carried out a simulation-based study to illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm in comparison to traditional methods. The simulation results reveal that our proposed algorithms outperform first come first serve (FCFS) and longest remaining time first (LRTF), and achieves comparable or superior results compared to priority and fairness-based resource allocation with 5G new radio numerology (PFRA-0N) in terms of the number of user allocations, average user allocation ratio, user drop ratios and average connectivity rate. Compared to the shortest job first (SJF) technique, our proposed PSA algorithm performance is slightly inferior in terms of the number of user allocations, average allocation ratio and average connectivity rate; however, it shows superior performance in drop ratios. Further, the proposed algorithms show significant improvements in execution time compared to the optimal exhaustive search solution.