Adaptive Resource Allocation for Uplink Carrier Aggregation Scheme in LTE-A-Type Networks

Carrier aggregation is an essential feature in the Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) system, which allows the scalable expansion of the effective bandwidth to be delivered to user equipment (UE) through the concurrent use of radio resources across multiple component carriers (CCs). This system's optimal radio-resource use has received much attention under simultaneous access (SA) scenarios for multiple CCs (m-CCs). This letter establishes how many CCs a UE should simultaneously connect to maintain maximum uplink capacity. Under the m-CC LTE-A system, the spectral efficiency of the m-CC SA scheme ($m{\geq}2$) is compared with that of CC selection (CCS). Numerical results reveal that the 2-CC SA scheme outperforms CCS and performs almost equally to the m-CC SA scheme ($m{\geq}3$).