《Two-level downlink scheduling for real-time》.pdf

Two-level downlink scheduling for real-time multimedia services in LTE networks Giuseppe Piro, Student Member, IEEE, Luigi Alfredo Grieco, Member, IEEE, Gennaro Boggia, Senior Member, IEEE, Rossella Fortuna, and Pietro Camarda Abstract Long Term Evolution represents an emerging technology that promises a broadband and ubiquitous Internet access. But several aspects have to be considered for providing effective multimedia services to mobile users. In particular, in this work, we consider the design of a QoS aware packet scheduler for real- time downlink communications. To this aim, a novel two-level scheduling algorithm is conceived. The upper level exploits an innovative approach based on discrete-time linear control theory. Instead, at the lower level a proportional fair scheduler has been properly tailored to our purposes. The performance and the complexity of the proposed scheme have been evaluated both theoretically and by using simulations. A comparison with recently proposed scheduling strategies has been also presented, considering several network conditions and real-time multimedia flows. Particular attention has been devoted to the evaluation of the Quality of Experience provided to end users. Results have clearly shown that the proposed approach is able to greatly outperform the existing ones especially in the presence of real-time video flows. Index Terms LTE, Cellular Networks, Downlink Scheduling, QoS, QoE. Authors are with the “DEE - Dip. di Elettrotecnica ed Elettronica”, Politecnico di Bari, v. Orabona, 4 - 70125, Bari, Italy. e-mail: g.piro,a.grieco,g.boggia,r.fortuna,camarda@poliba.it. A preliminary version of this work appeared as A Two-level Scheduling Algorithm fo