Mobility and traffic-aware resource scheduling for downlink transmissions in LTE-A systems

Authors: ÖNEM YILDIZ, RADOSVETA İVANOVA SOKULLU

Abstract: As new cellular networks support not only voice services but also many multimedia applications, the requirements for reliable data transmission at high speeds create heavy load on the system. Even though LTE/LTE-A technology takes action towards alleviating this load, it is still necessary to manage resources effectively because of the inadequacy of the available radio resources. Thus, the scheduler at the MAC layer of the base station plays a very important role in resource allocation to the user. In this study a novel algorithm for resource allocation in mobile environments is presented, with two variations addressing different input traffic. The idealized case (I-MAS algorithm) relates to the full-buffer model, while the realistic case (R-MAS algorithm) takes into consideration the specific characteristics of the incoming user traffic. The paper includes performance evaluation of the suggested algorithms in terms of mean and edge throughput, system fairness, and BLER and comparison with well-known algorithms like the round robin (RR) and best CQI (B-CQI) (full-buffer model) and their extensions for real-life traffic models, RR Traffic and B-CQI Traffic, respectively. When the simulation results are examined, it can be seen that the I-MAS and R-MAS algorithms maximize the throughput while at the same time distributing the resources fairly among the users. They also prove to be quite robust in mobile environments even at higher user speeds.

Keywords: LTE-A, scheduling algorithms, throughput, fairness, mobility

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