Wireless Packet Scheduling Algorithm for OFDMA System Based on Time‐Utility and Channel State

In this paper, we propose an urgency‐ and efficiencybased wireless packet scheduling (UEPS) algorithm that is able to schedule real‐time (RT) and non‐real‐time (NRT) traffics at the same time while supporting multiple users simultaneously at any given scheduling time instant. The UEPS algorithm is designed to support wireless downlink packet scheduling in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system, which is a strong candidate as a wireless access method for the next generation of wireless communications. The UEPS algorithm uses the time‐utility function as a scheduling urgency factor and the relative status of the current channel to the average channel status as an efficiency indicator of radio resource usage. The design goal of the UEPS algorithm is to maximize throughput of NRT traffics while satisfying quality‐of‐service (QoS) requirements of RT traffics. The simulation study shows that the UEPS algorithm is able to give better throughput performance than existing wireless packet scheduling algorithms such as proportional fair (PF) and modifiedlargest weighted delay first (M‐LWDF), while satisfying the QoS requirements of RT traffics such as average delay and packet loss rate under various traffic loads.     

Novel Radio Link Buffer Management Schemes for End-User Multi-class Traffic in High Speed Packet Access Networks

The requirement to provide multimedia services with QoS support in mobile networks has led to standardization and deployment of high speed data access technologies such as the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) system. HSDPA improves downlink packet data and multimedia services support in WCDMA-based cellular networks. As is the trend in emerging wireless access technologies, HSDPA supports end-user multi-class sessions comprising parallel flows with diverse Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, such as real-time (RT) voice or video streaming concurrent with non real-time (NRT) data service being transmitted to the same user, with differentiated queuing at the radio link interface. Hence, in this paper we present and evaluate novel radio link buffer management schemes for QoS control of multimedia traffic comprising concurrent RT and NRT flows in the same HSDPA end-user session. The new buffer management schemes—Enhanced Time Space Priority (E-TSP) and Dynamic Time Space Priority (D-TSP)—are designed to improve radio link and network resource utilization as well as optimize end-to-end QoS performance of both RT and NRT flows in the end-user session. Both schemes are based on a Time-Space Priority (TSP) queuing system, which provides joint delay and loss differentiation between the flows by queuing (partially) loss tolerant RT flow packets for higher transmission priority but with restricted access to the buffer space, whilst allowing unlimited access to the buffer space for delay-tolerant NRT flow but with queuing for lower transmission priority. Experiments by means of extensive system-level HSDPA simulations demonstrates that with the proposed TSP-based radio link buffer management schemes, significant end-to-end QoS performance gains accrue to end-user traffic with simultaneous RT and NRT flows, in addition to improved resource utilization in the radio access network.     

Maximization of user satisfaction in OFDMA systems using utility‐based resource allocation

In order to keep and/or expand its share of the wireless communication market and decrease churn, it is important for network operators to keep their users (clients) satisfied. The problem to be solved is how to increase the number of satisfied non‐real time (NRT) and real time (RT) users in the downlink of the radio access network of an orthogonal frequency division multiple access system. In this context, the present work proposes a method to solve the referred problem using a unified radio resource allocation (RRA) framework based on utility theory. This unified RRA framework is particularized into two RRA policies that use sigmoidal utility functions based on throughput or delay and are suitable for NRT and RT services, respectively. It is demonstrated by means of system‐level simulations that a step‐shaped sigmoidal utility function combined with a channel‐aware opportunistic scheduling criterion is effective toward the objective of user satisfaction maximization. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Efficient packet scheduling for heterogeneous multimedia provisioning over broadband satellite networks: An adaptive multidimensional QoS‐based design

With their inherent broadcast capabilities and reliable extensive geographical coverage, the broadband satellite networks are emerging as a promising approach for the delivery of multimedia services in 3G and beyond systems. Given the limited capacity of the satellite component, to meet the diverse quality of service (QoS) demands of multimedia applications, it is highly desired that the available resources can be adaptively utilized in an optimized way. In this paper, we draw our attention on the development and evaluation of an efficient packet scheduling scheme in a representative broadband satellite system, namely satellite digital multimedia broadcasting (SDMB), which is positioned as one of the most attractive solutions in the convergence of a closer integration with the terrestrial mobile networks for a cost‐effective delivery of point‐to‐multipoint services. By taking into account essential aspects of a successful QoS provisioning while preserving the system power/resource constraints, the proposed adaptive multidimensional QoS‐based (AMQ) packet scheduling scheme in this paper aims to effectively satisfy diverse QoS requirements and adaptively optimize the resource utilization for the satellite multimedia broadcasting. The proposed scheme is formulated via an adaptive service prioritization algorithm and an adaptive resource allocation algorithm. By taking into account essential performance criteria, the former is capable of prioritizing contending flows based on the QoS preferences and performance dynamics, while the latter allocates the resources, in an adaptive manner, according to the current QoS satisfaction degree of each session. Simulation results show that the AMQ scheme achieves significantly better performance than those of existing schemes on multiple performance metrics, e.g. delay, throughput, channel utilization and fairness. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An efficient resource allocation to improve QoS of 5G slicing networks using general processor sharing‐based scheduling algorithm

Fifth generation (5G) slicing is an emerging technology for software‐defined networking/network function virtualization–enabled mobile networks. Improving the utilization and throughput to meet the quality of service (QoS) requirements of 5G slicing is very important for the operators of mobile networks. With growing data traffic from different applications of numerous smart mobile devices having several QoS requirements, we expect networks to face problems of congestion and overload that prevent the effective functioning of a radio access network (RAN). This paper proposes a more effective packet‐based scheduling scheme for data traffic by 5G slicing with two operation modes for improving the resource utilization of 5G cloud RAN and providing an efficient isolation of the 5G slices. These two operation modes are referred to as static sharing resource (SSR) scheme and dynamic sharing resources (DSR) scheme. The SSR scheme is a modified version of an existing method. The goal of this approach is to reallocate the shared available resources of 5G network fairly and maximize the utilization of bandwidth while protecting a 5G slice from overwhelming other 5G slices. Throughput and delays of the system model are also discussed to show its performance limits. On the basis of the simulation outcomes, we observed that the proposed DSR scheme outperforms the SSR scheme in terms of provided delay and throughput. In addition, the token bucket parameters together with the assigned capacity weight for each slice can be selected and configured based on the required QoS. Finally, a good estimate for the maximum delay bounds of the slices is provided by the derived theoretical delay bound.     

Opportunistic delay‐margin‐based resource allocation for next‐generation wireless networks

This paper studies and develops efficient traffic management techniques for downlink transmission at the base station (BS) of multi‐service IP‐based networks by combining quality‐of‐service (QoS) provision and opportunistic wireless resource allocation. A delay‐margin‐based scheduling (DMS) for downlink traffic flows based on the delays that each packet has experienced up to the BS is proposed. The instantaneous delay margin, represented by the difference between the required and instantaneous delays, quantifies how urgent the packet is, and thus it can determine the queuing priority that should be given to the packet. The proposed DMS is further integrated with the opportunistic scheduling (OPS) to develop various queueing architectures to increase the wireless channel bandwidth efficiency. Different proposed integration approaches are investigated and compared in terms of delay outage probability and wireless channel bandwidth efficiency by simulation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

User bandwidth usage-driven hnn neuron excitation method for maximum resource utilization within packet-switched communication networks

Mobile and wireless systems beyond 3G are being designed under the user-centric paradigm. Dynamic resource allocation (DRA) is a topic on intensive research to address efficiently such paradigm. Hopfield neural networks (HNN) have proved useful in the past to solve this kind of complex optimization problems. Recently, various approaches have been proposed to realize HNN-based user-centric DRA. However, the initial algorithms suffer from severe instability problems impacting the overall performance. This letter analyses the source of the existing limitations and proposes an enhanced formulation, ensuring maximum resource utilization while optimizing the convergence of the neural network. The letter highlights the improved performance in terms of optimum convergence and bandwidth utilization     

Novel Section‐Based Joint Network Coding and Scheduling Scheme in WMNs: JNCS

Guaranteeing quality of service over a multihop wireless network is difficult because end‐to‐end (ETE) delay is accumulated at each hop in a multihop flow. Recently, research has been conducted on network coding (NC) schemes as an alternative mechanism to significantly increase the utilization of valuable resources in multihop wireless networks. This paper proposes a new section‐based joint NC and scheduling scheme that can reduce ETE delay and enhance resource efficiency in a multihop wireless network. Next, this paper derives the average ETE delay of the proposed scheme and simulates a TDMA network where the proposed scheme is deployed. Finally, this paper compares the performance of the proposed scheme with that of the conventional sequential scheduling scheme. From the performance analysis and simulation results, the proposed scheme gives more delay‐ and energy‐efficient slot assignments even if the NC operation is applied, resulting in a use of fewer network resources and a reduction in ETE delay.     

Cross‐Layer Resource Allocation Scheme for WLANs with Multipacket Reception

Tailored for wireless local area networks, the present paper proposes a cross‐layer resource allocation scheme for multiple‐input multiple‐output orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing systems. Our cross‐layer resource allocation scheme consists of three stages. Firstly, the condition of sharing the subchannel by more than one user is studied. Secondly, the subchannel allocation policy which depends on the data packets’ lengths and the admissible combination of users per subchannel is proposed. Finally, the bits and corresponding power are allocated to users based on a greedy algorithm and the data packets’ lengths. The analysis and simulation results demonstrate that our proposed scheme not only achieves significant improvement in system throughput and average packet delay compared with conventional schemes but also has low computational complexity.     

A correlation‐based and spectrum‐aware admission control mechanism for multimedia streaming in cognitive radio sensor networks

Bandwidth management and traffic control are critical issues to guarantee the quality of service in cognitive radio networks. This paper exploits a network load refinement approach to achieve the efficient resource utilization and provide the required quality of service. A connection admission control approach is introduced in cognitive radio multimedia sensor networks to provide the data transmission reliability and decrease jitter and packet end‐to‐end delay. In this approach, the admission of multimedia flows is controlled based on multimedia sensors' correlation information and traffic characteristics. We propose a problem, connection admission control optimization problem, to optimize the connection admission control operation. Furthermore, using a proposed weighting scheme according to the correlation of flows issued by multimedia sensors enables us to convert the connection admission control optimization problem to a binary integer‐programming problem. This problem is a kind of a Knapsack problem that is solved by a branch and bound method. Simulation results verify the proposed admission control method's effectiveness and demonstrate the benefits of admission control and traffic management in cognitive radio multimedia sensor networks. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A terminal‐controlled vertical handover decision scheme in IEEE 802.21‐enabled heterogeneous wireless networks

The seamless internetworking among heterogeneous networks is in great demand to provide ‘always‐on’ connectivity services with quality of service (QoS) provision, anywhere at anytime. The integration of wireless‐fidelity (Wi‐Fi) and wireless metropolitan area networks (WiMAX) networks can combine their best features to provide ubiquitous access, while mediating the weakness of both networks. While it is challenging to obtain optimized handover decision‐based dynamic QoS information, users can improve their perceived QoS by using the terminal‐controlled handover decision in a single device equipped with multiple radio interfaces. The IEEE 802.21 aims at providing a framework that defines media‐independent handover (MIH) mechanism that supports seamless handover across heterogeneous networks. In this paper, an multiple attributes decision making‐based terminal‐controlled vertical handover decision scheme using MIH services is proposed in the integrated Wi‐Fi and WiMAX networks to provide ‘always‐on’ connectivity QoS services. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme provides smaller handover times and lower dropping rate than the RSS‐based and cost function‐based vertical handover schemes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Efficient slice‐aware H.264/AVC video transmission over time‐driven priority networks

This paper proposes a multimedia streaming architecture that combines network and video technologies to handle video traffic over multi‐hop access networks. In this context, resource overprovision typical of current quality of service approaches will become a limiting factor because of the increasing spread of bandwidth‐intensive multimedia applications. The proposed scheme adopts a time‐driven priority scheduling at network nodes and exploits slice classification at the video encoder to differentiate packets. The service guarantees offered by time‐driven priority, together with the packet classification, significantly reduce congestion and increase the video quality at the receiver with respect to the traditional differentiated services (DiffServ) approach, also achieving high resource utilization. This is an important result, as current DiffServ‐based architectures are far from obtaining such resource utilization in conjunction with reasonable delays and jitters. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pricing and power control for energy‐efficient radio resource management in cognitive femtocell networks

Cognitive femtocell has been considered as a promising technique that can improve the capacity and the utilization of spectrum efficiency in wireless networks because of the short transmission distance and low transmit power. In this paper, we study the win–win solution of energy‐efficient radio resource management in cognitive femtocell networks, where the macrocell tries to maximize its revenue by adjusting spectrum utilization price while the femtocells try to maximize their revenues by dynamically adjusting the transmit power. When the spectrum utilization price is given by macrocell, we formulate the power control problem of standalone femtocells as an optimization problem and introduce a low‐complexity iteration algorithm based on gradient‐assisted binary search algorithm to solve it. Besides, non‐cooperative game is used to formulate the power control problem between collocated femtocells in a collocated femtocell set, and then low complexity and widely used gradient‐based iteration algorithm is applied to obtain the Nash‐equilibrium solution. Specially, asymptotic analysis is applied to find the approximate spectrum utilization price in macrocell, which can greatly reduce the computational complexity of the proposed energy‐efficient radio resource management scheme. Finally, extensive simulation results are presented to verify our theoretical analysis and demonstrate the performance of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A retransmission‐based scheme for video streaming over wireless channels

Efficient resource allocation is a key factor to improve the efficiency of video transmission over wireless channels. To increase the number of correctly received video frames at the decoder, it is desirable to reduce the video source rate while increasing error protection when the wireless channel is anticipated to be bad or when the receiver buffer is approaching starvation. In this study, we introduce a retransmission‐based adaptive source‐channel rate control scheme for video transmission over wireless packet networks. In this scheme, the level of adaptiveness is optimized to reduce the bandwidth requirement while guaranteeing delay and loss bounds. The proposed scheme has the advantage of providing closed‐form expressions of the near‐optimum parameters of the proposed model, which are then fed back to the transmitter to scale both the source and channel rates adaptively. Simulation and numerical investigations are carried out to verify the adequacy of the analysis and study the impact of the adaptive process on the continuity of the video playback process. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

QoS‐based radio network dimensioning for LTE networks with heavy real‐time traffic

Applications of video streaming and real‐time gaming, which generate large amounts of real‐time traffic in the network, are expected to gain considerable popularity in Long Term Evolution networks. Maintaining the QoS such as packet delay, packet loss ratio, median, and cell border throughput requirements in networks dominated by real time traffic, is critical. The existing dimensioning methodology does not consider QoS parameters of real‐time traffic in network dimensioning. Moreover, exhaustive and time‐consuming simulations are normally required to evaluate the performance and QoS of real‐time services. To overcome this problem, we propose an improved radio network dimensioning framework that considers the QoS of real‐time traffic in network dimensioning. In this framework, an analytical model is proposed to evaluate the capacity and performance of real‐time traffic dominant Long Term Evolution networks. The proposed framework provides a fast and accurate means of finding the trade‐off between system load, packet delay, packet loss ratio, required median, and cell border throughput. It also provides network operators with an analytical means for obtaining the minimum number of sites required by jointly considering coverage, capacity and QoS requirements. The accuracy of the proposed model is validated through simulations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Packet Scheduling Algorithm Considering a Minimum Bit Rate for Non‐realtime Traffic in an OFDMA/FDD‐Based Mobile Internet Access System

In this letter, we consider a new packet scheduling algorithm for an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access/frequency division duplex (OFDMA/FDD)‐based system, e.g., mobile broadband wireless access or high‐speed portable internet systems, in which the radio resources of both time and frequency slots are dynamically shared by all users under a proper scheduling policy. Our design objective is to increase the number of non‐realtime service (e.g., WWW) users that can be supported in the system, especially when the minimum bit rate requirement is imposed on them. The simulation results show that our proposed algorithm can provide a significant improvement in the average outage probability performance for the NRT service, i.e., significantly increasing the number of NRT users without much compromising of the cell throughput.     

Small‐block interleaving for low‐delay cross‐packet forward error correction over burst‐loss channels

By adding the redundant packets into source packet block, cross‐packet forward error correction (FEC) scheme performs error correction across packets and can recover both congestion packet loss and wireless bit errors accordingly. Because cross‐packet FEC typically trades the additional latency to combat burst losses in the wireless channel, this paper presents a FEC enhancement scheme using the small‐block interleaving technique to enhance cross‐packet FEC with the decreased delay and improved good‐put. Specifically, adopting short block size is effective in reducing FEC processing delay, whereas the corresponding effect of lower burst‐error correction capacity can be compensated by deliberately controlling the interleaving degree. The main features include (i) the proposed scheme that operates in the post‐processing manner to be compatible with the existing FEC control schemes and (ii) to maximize the data good‐put in lossy networks; an analytical FEC model is built on the interleaved Gilbert‐Elliott channel to determine the optimal FEC parameters. The simulation results show that the small‐block interleaved FEC scheme significantly improves the video streaming quality in lossy channels for delay‐sensitive video. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Cross-Layer Packet Scheduling Scheme for Multimedia Broadcasting via Satellite Digital Multimedia Broadcasting System [Advances in Mobile Multimedia]

In recent years, multimedia content broadcasting via satellite has attracted increased attention. The satellite digital multimedia broadcasting (S-DMB) system has emerged as one of the most promising alternatives for the efficient delivery of multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS). The design of an efficient radio resource management (RRM) strategy, especially the packet scheduling scheme, becomes a key technique for provisioning multimedia services at required quality of service (QoS) in S-DMB. In this article, we propose a novel cross-layer packet scheduling scheme that consists of a combined delay and rate differentiation (CDRD) service prioritization algorithm and a dynamic rate matching (DRM)-based resource allocation algorithm. The proposed scheme considers multiple key factors that span from the application layer to the physical layer, aiming at simultaneously guaranteeing diverse QoS while utilizing radio resources efficiently under the system power and resource constraints. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed cross-layer scheme achieves significantly better performance than existing schemes in queuing delay, jitter, and channel utilization.     

QoS‐aware cross‐domain collaborative energy‐saving mechanism for FiWi virtual networks

The fiber‐wireless (FiWi) access network is a very promising solution for next‐generation access networks. Because of the different protocols between its subnets, it is hard to globally optimize the operation of FiWi networks. Network virtualization technology is applied to FiWi networks to realize the coexistence of heterogeneous networks and centralized control of network resource. The existing virtual resource management methods always be designed to optimize virtual network (VN) request acceptance rate and survivability, but seldom consider energy consumption and varied requirements of quality of service (QoS) satisfaction, which is a hot and important topic in the industrial field. Therefore, this paper focuses on the QoS‐aware cross‐domain collaborative energy saving mechanism for FiWi virtual networks. First, the virtual network embedding (VNE) model, energy consumption model, and VNE profit model of FiWi networks are established. Then, a QoS‐aware in‐region VN embedding mechanism is proposed to guarantee service quality of different services. After that, an underlying resource updating mechanism based on energy efficiency awareness is designed to realize low‐load ONU and wireless routers co‐sleep in FiWi networks. Finally, a QoS‐aware re‐embedding mechanism is presented to allocate proper resource to the VNs affected by the sleeping mechanism. Especially for video VNs, a re‐embedding scheme which adopts traffic splitting and multipath route is introduced to meet resource limitation and low latency. Simulation results show that the proposed mechanism can reduce FiWi network's energy consumption, improve VNE profit, and ensure high embedding accepting rate and strict delay demand of high‐priority VNs.     

A distributed utility‐based scheduling for peer‐to‐peer video streaming over wireless networks

Interactive multimedia applications such as peer‐to‐peer (P2P) video services over the Internet have gained increasing popularity during the past few years. However, the adopted Internet‐based P2P overlay network architecture hides the underlying network topology, assuming that channel quality is always in perfect condition. Because of the time‐varying nature of wireless channels, this hardly meets the user‐perceived video quality requirement when used in wireless environments. Considering the tightly coupled relationship between P2P overlay networks and the underlying networks, we propose a distributed utility‐based scheduling algorithm on the basis of a quality‐driven cross‐layer design framework to jointly optimize the parameters of different network layers to achieve highly improved video quality for P2P video streaming services in wireless networks. In this paper, the quality‐driven P2P scheduling algorithm is formulated into a distributed utility‐based distortion‐delay optimization problem, where the expected video distortion is minimized under the constraint of a given packet playback deadline to select the optimal combination of system parameters residing in different network layers. Specifically, encoding behaviors, network congestion, Automatic Repeat Request/Query (ARQ), and modulation and coding are jointly considered. Then, we provide the algorithmic solution to the formulated problem. The distributed optimization running on each peer node adopted in the proposed scheduling algorithm greatly reduces the computational intensity. Extensive experimental results also demonstrate 4–14 dB quality enhancement in terms of peak signal‐to‐noise ratio by using the proposed scheduling algorithm. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.