A Modular Cross-Layer Scheduling and Resource Allocation Architecture for OFDMA Systems

Packet scheduling and radio resource allocation in an OFDMA system pursue conflicting goals: the latter aims at achieving short-term efficiency, while scheduling aims at guaranteeing fairness among flows in the long term. We propose a scheduler-allocator architecture that successfully manages to integrate both goals in a loose cross-layer strategy. On each time frame the scheduling module selects a list of packets eligible for transmission, with the goal of achieving long-term fairness; the list is then passed to the radio resource allocator, which finds the best allocation given the current channel state. We evaluate the proposed scheme in a single cell scenario. Results point out that our scheme is able to guarantee throughput fairness among flows, while achieving an efficient allocation of radio resources