Novel Transport Layer Aware Uplink Scheduling Scheme for LTE-based Networks

In this paper we propose a novel Transport Layer Aware Uplink Scheduling Scheme (TraLAUS) for Long Term Evolution (LTE) Networks. It is a cross-layer scheduling scheme in which scheduling decisions are taken at the MAC (Medium Access Control) Layer of the TCP/IP Protocol stack based on Physical and Transport Layer informations. In this scheme, the eNodeB takes the uplink scheduling decisions based on the demand and CQI (Channel Quality Information) received from the UEs (User Equipments). Through extensive simulations, we compare the performance of our proposed algorithm with that of classical Round Robin (RR) and channel-aware Modified Round Robin (MRR) uplink scheduling schemes. From the simulation results, we observe that our algorithm performs significantly better in terms of average throughput (gain of 18.89% over RR and 13.89% over MRR), packet drops and queue length as compared to that of RR and MRR uplink scheduling schemes, and at the same time ensures fairness among the UEs.