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

Abstract

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