Packet scheduling in MIMO satellite long term evolution networks

This paper deals with the performance evaluation of different packet scheduling schemes for Long Term Evolution mobile satellite systems based on the adoption of a multi‐user MIMO technique. The major breakthrough of MIMO technology in terrestrial networks has motivated the interest here for the adoption of MIMO in mobile satellite systems as well. In particular, a land mobile dual‐polarized GEO satellite system has been considered in this work. The aim of this paper is to propose new cross‐layer packet scheduling schemes that achieve a good trade‐off among throughput, QoS and fairness and to conduct performance comparisons with other scheduling schemes in the literature. This is the reason why this paper also proposes a new performance index that can be used to evaluate the overall performance of each scheduler. The work shows that the new cross‐layer scheduler, called channel‐based queue sensitive scheduler, attains the best performance in terms of the new comprehensive performance index, thus representing an interesting solution for future mobile satellite systems. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.