A simple packet-transmission scheme for wireless data over fading channels

In this letter, we present a simplified scheduling scheme for packet transmission over a fading channel which is modeled as a finite-state block channel. We first address the optimal minimum power-transmission policy with constraints on both average delay and packet loss. The optimal policy requires a sophisticated table lookup for implementation. In order to alleviate this problem, we design a simplified transmission policy that is based on checking for three control parameters: a transmission-rate threshold; a channel-state threshold; and the transmission buffer size. Our results show that the minimum average power with the simplified scheme is very close to that achieved by the optimal policy. Further, modeling the simplified scheme via a single-server bulk-service queue, we derive approximations to the quality of service metrics, such as average power and delay, that allow for analytical insights into the policy design.