Packet Scheduling and Fairness for Multiuser MIMO Systems

This paper investigates the network resource allocation in multiuser downlink wireless systems where the base station and the mobile stations are equipped with multiple antennas to provide fair and efficient transmission services to the mobile users. We focus on packet scheduling, given that it has a significant impact on the overall performance of a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system. Most previous schedulers designed at the packet level do not take into account the traffic characteristics (different packet lengths and the arrival process parameters); consequently, they fall short of simultaneously providing fairness and a low average packet transmission delay. We are making use of a flexible packet transmission algorithm at the medium access control (MAC) layer to develop and propose a novel scheduler, which is referred to as MIMO packet-based proportional fairness (MP-PF). The new scheduler is designed with the goal of providing high performance in terms of a low average packet transmission delay and time and service fairness among the users based on the concept of proportional fairness. The scheduler also conserves work and takes into consideration the packet length, the user queue length, the user transmission rate (related to its channel quality), and the service guarantees for heterogeneous users. The well-known ideal service fair scheduler called max-min can also significantly be improved using our framework by taking into consideration the traffic characteristics. We also provide an analysis for the fairness of the new scheduler in terms of time and service allocation, which is the key contribution of this paper. Simulations that consider the traffic characteristics and the mobility of users show the relatively low average packet transmission delay and demonstrate the time and service fairness capabilities of MP-PF, compared with other well-known MIMO schedulers.