A Throughput-Optimal Scheduling Policy for Wireless Relay Networks

We propose a packet scheduling policy called maximum sum backlog (MSB) scheduling in wireless relay networks. It assigns a high priority to a user queues whose packets experienced longer delay until arriving the current queues by choosing a queue whose sum backlog multiplied by the corresponding link capacity is highest. We derive the stability region of the wireless relay system and prove that the MSB scheduling is a throughput-optimal policy. Numerical results show that the MSB scheduling provides a better delay fairness among users than the maximal differential backlog scheduling does.