Throughput Constrained Opportunistic Scheduling in Cellular Data Networks

This paper considers a scheduling problem for multiuser transmissions over the downlink of a time-slotted cellular data network. For such a network, opportunistic scheduling exploits the time-varying radio channel and improves network performance. This paper presents a new scheduling solution that maximizes the aggregate user performance subject to certain minimum and maximum performance constraints. By constraining the performance experienced by individual users, who share a common radio downlink, to some upper bounds, it is possible to provide the system operator with a better control of radio resource allocations and service differentiation among different classes of users. The proposed solution, which is referred to as throughput constrained opportunistic scheduling (TCOS), offers better service differentiation among different classes of users than the existing opportunistic scheduling algorithms with only minimum performance constraints. For ideal memoryless fading channels, TCOS provides performance comparable with an existing scheme with minimum and maximum performance constraints. For realistic fading channels with memory, TCOS significantly improves system performance due to its ability to trade off feasibility with throughput. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the improved system performance and effective service differentiation of the proposed solution under realistic channel conditions.