Interference Management using Packet Scheduling in Broadband Wireless Access Networks

This paper proposes a transmission scheduling algorithm for interference management in broadband wireless access networks. The algorithm aims to minimize the cochannel interference using basestation coordination while still maintaining the other quality of service (QoS) requirements such as packet delay, throughput, and packet loss. The interference reduction is achieved by avoiding (or minimizing) concurrent transmission of potential dominant interferers. Dynamic slot allocation based on traffic information in other cells/sectors is employed. In order to implement the algorithm in a distributed manner, basestations have to exchange traffic information. Both real-time and non-real-time services are considered in this work. Results show that significant reduction in the packet error rate can be achieved without increasing the packet delay at low to medium loading values and with a higher but acceptable packet delay at high loading value. Since ARQ schemes can also be used for packet error rate reduction, we compare the performance of the proposed scheme with that of ARQ. Results indicate that although ARQ is more effective in reducing packet error rate, the proposed algorithm incurs much less packet delay particularly at medium to high loading. KeywordsInterference management, transmission scheduling, broadband wireless access, multimedia wireless multimedia service, ARQ. This work has been supported by the National Capital Institute of Telecommunications (NCIT), Ottawa, Canada. Submitted to Wiley Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Journal