Utility Function Based Resource Block Scheduling in Wireless Networks

Future wireless network needs to support a diverse range of high data rate and heterogeneous traffic using packet scheduling. The scheduler in wireless network is a key function that allocates resource blocks (RBs) to each active user equipment (UE). The inefficient scheduling policy impacts UE's performance of the cell average, throughput and fairness. Typically, UEs at the cell edge experience low data rates due to low signal to interference plus noise ratios (SINRs), attributed to high path loss and signal fading. Conventional schedulers, such as Round Robin (RR), Proportional Fair (PF) and Maximum Channel Quality Indicator (Max CQI), show inefficient support for cell edge UEs. This paper presents a new radio resource block scheduler for wireless network based on a utility function policy. Termed the 'Utility Function (UF)' scheduler, the new policy enhances the throughput performance of cell edge UEs by a ratio of 1.13 to 1.87 and cell throughput by a ratio of 1.09 to 1.30. This is simulated over various UE density and compared with PF scheduling with an acceptable trade-off of average fairness.