Max-Min Fair Resource Allocation for SWIPT in Multi-Group Multicast OFDM Systems

Abstract-Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is considered for multi-group multicasting OFDM systems. Each user has the energy harvesting capability through a power splitter (PS). The power and subcarrier allocation at the base station is done such that the minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) among the users for each subcarrier is maximized while user needs for harvested power are satisfied. The optimization of PS ratios in addition to resource allocation is realized in a joint manner. It is shown that the problem can be cast in a convex optimization form for the given subcarrier sets. In order to determine the subcarrier sets, an efficient subcarrier allocation algorithm is proposed. It is shown that the proposed method performs very close to the exhaustive search which gives the optimum solution. Index Terms—Resource allocation, multi-group multicasting, OFDM, SWIPT, power splitting.