Optimal Packet-Centric Down-Link Scheduling in Cellular OFDMA

The scheduling decisions made by the scheduler in a packet-oriented network have a significant impact on the network performance. By the use of cross-layer optimization techniques, the packet scheduling process can be supported, such that system resources are allocated with respect to the user’s current channel state and data requirements. In this paper, we present means to obtain optimal scheduling decisions for a base-station scheduler of a packet-centric wireless OFDMA cell. We study the influence of optimal decisions on the system’s throughput performance, while observing the impact on signaling costs and complexity. Moreover, we derive two mechanisms that deliver suboptimal results based on relaxation and heuristics, and compare their performance to the optimal case. 1 This work has been supported by the BMBF and Ericsson Research, Germany, in the context of the project ScaleNet.