Comparative analysis of scheduling algorithms for radio resource allocation in future communication networks.

Khuram Ashfaq,Masood Ur-Rehman,Ghazanfar Ali Safdar

doi:10.7717/peerj-cs.546

Khuram Ashfaq, Masood Ur-Rehman + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.546

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Abstract

BackgroundWireless links are fast becoming the key communication mode. However, as compared to the wired link, their characteristics make the traffic prone to time- and location-dependent signal attenuation, noise, fading, and interference that result in time varying channel capacities and link error rate. Scheduling algorithms play an important role in wireless links to guarantee quality of service (QoS) parameters such as throughput, delay, jitter, fairness and packet loss rate. The scheduler has vital importance in current as well as future cellular communications since it assigns resource block (RB) to different users for transmission. Scheduling algorithm makes a decision based on the information of link state, number of sessions, reserved rates and status of the session queues. The information required by a scheduler implemented in the base station can easily be collected from the downlink transmission.MethodsThis paper reflects on the importance of schedulers for future wireless communications taking LTE-A networks as a case study. It compares the performance of four well-known scheduling algorithms including round robin (RR), best channel quality indicator (BCQI), proportional fair (PF), and fractional frequency reuse (FFR). The performance of these four algorithms is evaluated in terms of throughput, fairness index, spectral efficiency and overall effectiveness. System level simulations have been performed using a MATLAB based LTE-A Vienna downlink simulator.ResultsThe results show that the FFR scheduler is the best performer among the four tested algorithms. It also exhibits flexibility and adaptability for radio resource assignment.

Highlights

Wireless networks have seen a massive growth in recent years
Performance of four widely used schedulers; round robin (RR), best channel quality indicator (BCQI), fractional frequency reuse (FFR) and proportional fair (PF) has been investigated under two different scenarios considering the LTE-A environment as a case study
The results have shown that BCQI algorithm outperforms the other three in terms of throughput because it is a sum rate maximizing resource allocation algorithm in which the priority of each resource block (RB) assigned is according to the channel quality indicator (CQI) feedback value

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Wireless networks have seen a massive growth in recent years. Their popularity has surpassed wired links mainly due to cost-effective terminals and higher data rates. Guaranteeing better quality-of-service (QoS) is a necessity in today’s wireless communications as most of the multimedia applications require higher data rates This demands the development of powerful resource management strategies that provide high throughput and ensure effective usage of available resources. The higher the CQI value the better the channel condition is This scheduler can increase the individual cell throughput, it suffers from the lack of fairness among cellular users (Mamane et al, 2019). PF improves spectral efficiency and provides higher fairness to the system by using the channel variations This scheduler allocates the resource blocks to the cellular users with.

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CONCLUSION