ABSTRACT
Round opportunistic fair (ROF) scheduling is proposed as a heuristic algorithm for improving fairness in wireless downlink transmission scheduling. ROF represents a trade-off between the achievable aggregate throughput on one side, and fairness on the other side. Even though the proposed algorithm is usable with other types of multiple access, a simple single-channel time-slotted system is assumed.
The proposed algorithm takes rounds over the users to be scheduled for downlink transmissions. However, it does not schedule users cyclically as in round robin scheduling because it prioritizes users with better channel conditions. At the same time, the proposed algorithm does not always schedule the user with the absolute best channel conditions to allow fairness in user access to system resources.
To keep the presentation of ROF as simple as possible, mathematical analysis that only demonstrates the operational mechanism of the algorithm is included. Fairness and other performance capabilities of ROF are evaluated using computer simulations. Simulation results show that ROF achieves good levels of fairness compared to other well-known algorithms such as proportional fairness scheduling.
