An Improved Proportional Fair Scheduling Algorithm for Downlink LTE Cellular Network

Network providers of LTE networks can achieve maximum gain and Quality of Service (QoS) requirement of their users by employing a radio resource management technique that has the ability to allocate resource blocks to users in a fair manner without compromising the capacity of the network. This implies that for a better performing LTE network, a fair scheduling and balanced QoS delivery for various forms of traffic are needed. In this paper an improved proportional fair scheduling algorithm for downlink LTE cellular network has been developed. This algorithm was implemented using a MATLAB-based System Level simulator by Vienna University. The developed algorithm was compared to other scheduling algorithms such as the Proportional Fair (PF) algorithm, Best Channel Quality Indicator (CQI), and Round Robin (RR) scheduling methods. The system performance was also analyzed under different scenarios using different performance metrics. The achieved results showed that the developed algorithm had a better throughput performance than the Round Robin and Proportional fair scheduling. The developed algorithm shows improved cell edge throughputs of about 19.2% (as at 20 users) and 9.1% higher for cell edge users without and with mobility impact respectively. The Best CQI algorithm had higher peak throughput values but the fairness was highly compromised. The developed algorithm outperforms the Best CQI by 136.6% without the impact of mobility. Finally, in dense conditions, the developed algorithm still outperforms the other algorithms with a QoS metric of 4.6% increment when compared to the PF algorithm which was the closest competitor. Keywords: UE, eNodeB, Scheduling, Proportional Fair, LTE,