Frame Allocation and Scheduling for Relay Networks in the LTE Advanced Standard

The use of relays is seen as a promising way to extend cell coverage and increase rates in LTE Advanced networks. Instead of increasing the number of base stations (BS), relays with lower cost could provide similar gains. A relay will have a wireless link to the closest BS as only connection to the core network and will cover areas close to the cell edge or other areas with limited rates. Performing transmissions in several hops (BS-relay & relay-user) requires more radio resources than using direct transmission. This thesis studies how the available radio resources should be allocated between relays and users in order to maximize throughput and/or fairness. Time and frequency multiplexed backhaul is investigated under a full buffer traffic assumption. It is shown that the system will be backhaul limited and that the two ways of multiplexing will perform equally when maximising throughput and/or fairness. The analysis results in a set of throughput/fairness suboptimal solutions, dependant on how many relays are used per cell. The results are verified by simulations, which also show the limiting effects on throughput caused by interference between relays. It is also analysed how the resource allocation should be done given non-fullbuffer traffic. A resource allocation that minimises packet delay given a certain number of relays per cell is presented. The analysis is based on queuing theory. Finally some different schedulers and their suitability for relay networks are discussed. Simulation results are shown, comparing the throughput and fairness of Round Robin, Weighted Round Robin, Proportional Fairness and Weighted Proportional Fairness schemes. It is shown that allocating the resource among the relays according to the number of users served by the relays improves the fairness