Coordinated parallel resource allocation for integrated access and backhaul networks

Abstract

The architecture of integrated access and backhaul (IAB) endows 5G and beyond networks with the capabilities of both centralized and distributed resource management: a centralized node, IAB-donor, can efficiently coordinate resources with a network-wide view, and other distributed nodes, IAB-nodes, can quickly react to local traffic bursts multiple hops away from the IAB-donor. However, existing efforts on IAB networking mostly focus on either the centralized or distributed capability of IAB networks and lack the studies on handling bursty traffic. In this paper, a Coordinated Parallel Resource allocation scheme (CPReal) is developed to handle both bursty and non-bursty traffic. Its key feature is that it consists of both a centralized scheme at the IAB-donor for efficient coordination of resource allocation and a distributed scheme at each IAB-node for quick response to short-term bursty traffic. CPReal is standard-compliant and considers the strict parent-to-child relation between IAB-nodes specified in 5G standards. In CPReal, with the assistance from their parent nodes, IAB-nodes can quickly reach an agreement on resource allocation in a distributed and conflict-free way for traffic bursts. Extensive simulations show that CPReal outperforms existing schemes in throughput by 67.3% under bursty traffic and in end-to-end delay by up to 34.4% under various scenarios.