Resource Sharing in Relay-enhanced 4G Networks

Type 1 inband relay nodes and time-division transmit and receive advanced relay stations are to be supported by 3GPP LTE-Advanced and IEEE 802.16m, respectively. Both classifications support a similar relaying mode where the relay link transmission is time- division multiplexed with the access link transmission, whereas macro users share the same resources with the relays. Hence, system performance depends strongly on the resource partitioning strategy among and within the links as well as how well the competition on resources is managed at the donor eNB. In this paper, we present performance evaluation of different schemes for resource sharing among relay nodes and prioritization techniques of relay users on the relay link coupled with the corresponding scheduling on the access link. In particular, we propose a combination of resource sharing based on the number of relay users and relay link prioritization and scheduling of relay users achieving max-min fairness. A comprehensive system-level simulation campaign is carried out in 3GPP urban and suburban models considering 4 and 10 relays per cell. Results show that the proposed scheme achieves high system fairness and significant throughput gains at the low and mid throughput regime at no or negligible loss in cell throughput.