Real-time bandwidth allocation (RTBA): a packet scheduling algorithm for WCDMA systems

Time-to-expiration, unsent data size, and location-dependent channel capacity and errors are three key factors for fairness service and real-time scheduling in wireless networks. This paper presents a real-time bandwidth allocation (RTBA) algorithm which considers the three factors by a weighting factor H for real-time traffic fairly in WCDMA. Because IP will potentially become a common network layer protocol over all radio access networks, the RTBA algorithm is designed mainly in the IP layer. It also couples the packet scheduling in both IP and radio link layers to reduce overhead and possibly could achieve better performance for the whole system. To optimize the bandwidth allocation for good channels, we also propose simple and historical predictions for channel conditions in the function H. Simulation results show that the RTBA algorithm reduces the data dropping rate significantly when comparing to the earliest due date (EDD) algorithm. The simple and historical prediction methods are also very close to the real wireless situation.