A novel packet scheduling strategy for packet service over downlink dedicated channels in WCDMA system

Abstract

We investigate the issue of providing an interactive packet service through downlink dedicated channels (DCH) in a WCDMA FDD (frequency division duplex) system and propose a novel MAC measurement based (MMB) packet scheduling algorithm. The MMB scheduler switches packets between DCHs of different rates based on the traffic volume measurement of their corresponding serving DCH buffers. The algorithm performance is evaluated by detailed system simulations in terms of average packet throughput. Numerical results reveal that the presented algorithm shows consistent performance for different traffic sources and. various DCH combinations. Furthermore, optimal algorithm performances under the various conditions studied are achieved with almost the same algorithm parameter settings. This robust and stable property qualifies the algorithm capabilities of handling multiple interactive service classes and of supporting elastic access capacity well.