Opportunistic Scheduling with Frame Aggregation for Next Generation Wireless LANs

The multiuser diversity phenomenon is exploited via opportunistic scheduling for increasing system throughput in wireless networks. Another method to enhance system throughput is through frame aggregation, which increases MAC efficiency. We consider opportunistic scheduling jointly with frame aggregation. In this paper, we argue that existing opportunistic schemes are not optimal when frame aggregation is used. We propose new scheduling approaches that combine channel states with queue states. Through detailed simulations, we show that our new algorithms offer significant improvement in network throughput over non-opportunistic and greedy schedulers. Our algorithms also provide a good compromise between throughput and fairness.