Patent ID: 8259630

Claim:
A method of allocating subcarrier frequency resource for a relay enhanced cellular communication system including a base station, one or more mobile stations and one or more relay stations, comprising: assigning a set of subcarriers by: allocating subcarriers to one or more relay communication links between the base station and relay stations, to accommodate minimum data rate requirements of one or more access communication links between relay stations and mobile stations; allocating subcarriers to the one or more access communication links between relay stations and mobile stations to approximate the data rates achieved on the corresponding relay communication links, wherein allocating subcarriers to one or more access communication links includes reusing subcarriers among access communication links in different relay cells and assigning the set of subcarriers to one or more access communication links by: detecting a serving station, among all under-assigned serving stations, with a least achievement-requirement data rate ratio on its access communication links, wherein a serving station is one of a base station or a relay station; and for a subcarrier allocated to an under-assigned relay station, selectively allocating that subcarrier to other under-assigned relay stations when such allocation benefits overall system throughput.