Antenna-assisted round robin scheduling for MIMO cellular systems

Packet scheduling is investigated for the downlink of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) cellular system. We propose an antenna-assisted round robin scheduling (AA-RRS) scheme to improve the conventional RRS scheme. The AA-RRS scheme provides fair channel access chance to users as the RRS scheme, whereas it increases the system capacity through the effective use of multiple antennas in achieving a diversity effect from multiple users. Simulation results show that the AA-RRS scheme achieves a significant capacity gain over the RRS scheme. We also investigate the effects of long-term power control on the system capacities for the proposed scheduling scheme.