A novel QoS aware medium access control scheduler for LTE-advanced network

LTE-A specification mandates Medium Access Control (MAC) scheduler entity to ensure strict guaranteed quality of service (QoS) both in downlink and uplink direction. To the best of our knowledge the LTE-A MAC schedulers proposed so far constitute of an objective function dependent on single constraints like number of radio resources, user throughput, user channel conditions, user data buffer or user's downlink power requirement. In real world scenario if all the above constraints are not simultaneously taken into consideration, then it would be difficult to meet LTE-A QoS requirements. In this regard, to the best found knowledge, for first time in this paper, we propose a Multi Objective QoS aware LTE-A Downlink-MAC Scheduler (MOQDS) algorithm which adhere to two level QoS and fairness requirements of LTE-A specification. MOQDS algorithm does scheduling at two levels with each level has its objective function with its multiple operational constraints. Every transmission time interval, MOQDS uses multi-objective optimization to selects right user(s) and its corresponding application(s) to meet LTE-A QoS requirements. Simulation results are being compared with well referred LTE-A schedulers like modified largest weighted delay first, exponential rule proportional fairness and log rule under various ITU channel models. MOQDS achieves an average of 50% reduction in packet drop rate and minimum three times increased cell throughput as compared to above mentioned schedulers' types and also with respect to all the other MAC schedulers mentioned in the references.