Resource Allocation for Real Time Services in LTE Networks: Resource Allocation Using Cooperative Game Theory and Virtual Token Mechanism

The LTE specifications provide QoS for multimedia services with fast connectivity, high mobility and security. However, 3GPP specifications have not defined scheduling algorithms to exploit the LTE characteristics to support real time services. In this article we propose a two level scheduling scheme composed by cooperative game theory, a virtual token mechanism, and the well known algorithms EXP-RULE and Modified-Largest Weighted Delay Firs (M-LWDF) in downlink system. By using cooperative game theory such as bankruptcy game and Shapley value, the proposed mechanism works by forming coalitions between flow classes to distribute the bandwidth fairly among all of them. Both algorithms EXP-RULE and M-LWDF have been modified to use a virtual token mechanism to improve their performance, giving priority to real time flows. By taking the arrival rate of packets into account, the proposed mechanism partially included in previous schedulers has been adapted to this work to increase remarkably the performance of the resource allocation for real time flows. The performance evaluation is conducted in terms of system throughput, Packet loss ratio, total cell spectral efficiency, delay and fairness index.