Compensated Proportional Fair Scheduling in Multiuser OFDM Wireless Networks

In wireless networks, providing a fair bandwidth allocation without too much reducing the system throughput is very challenging. Path loss attenuations induce unequal spectral efficiencies and in terms unequal throughtput for mobiles with different geographical positions. In the litterature, Proportional Fair (PF) is acknowledged as the reference scheduler in multiuser OFDM wireless networks. Opportunistically considering the channel state, PF is adapted to the wireless environment fighting the multipath fading negative effects. PF takes advantage of multiuser diversity and globally maximizes the throughput. Additionally, PF scheduling currently makes the best tradeoff between fairness and throughput maximization. However, severe fairness deficiencies appear when the mobiles experience unequal path loss. In this paper, we propose to solve this fairness issue with a modified PF scheme that introduces distance compensation factors. Simulation results show that this well-balanced resource allocation outperforms other existing scheduling schemes and jointly provides both high system throughput and high fairness.