QoS hybrid uplink scheduler based on service type for M2M communications in LTE networks

Abstract

The introduction of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications in cellular networks creates a new set of challenges because of the unique service requirements and features of M2M devices. One of these challenges is the management of radio resources, especially on the uplink because of the unfairness and poor performance that occurs when allocating resources to users. Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) are excellent candidates for supporting M2M communications because of their native IP connectivity and scalability for a variety of devices. Therefore, LTE schedulers should be able to meet the needs of M2M devices such as time constraints and specific Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. In this paper, these constraints are studied and analyzed, focusing on three schedulers; they are Round Robin (RR), First Maximum Expansion (FME) and Maximum Throughput (MT). These methods do not provide QoS to users who use different types of traffic flows. The solution proposed in this work is a hybrid model between two schedulers each of them is the best scheduling solution for the real-time service and the other for the non-real-time service, in order to meet QoS criteria maximizing throughput and minimizing packet loss. Video and voip were selected as real-time traffic and best effort for non-real time. The simulations results show that the proposed scheduler reaches the lowest Packet Loss Rate (PLR), delivering highest throughput and goodput among the other strategies.