Spectrum-aware radio resource management for scalable video multicast in LTE-advanced systems

In this paper, we consider scalable video multicast to LTE-A user groups. We focus on the problem in accommodating the varying channel conditions amongst group members to adaptively select modulation schemes that meet the desired QoS objectives for the bitstream layers. We envision a fair provisioning of the base layer to ensure baseline quality to all users and an opportunistic provisioning of the enhancement layers to maximize system utility. We show NP-Hardness in the formulation of the base and enhancement layer resource allocation to the groups and design greedy approximations to solve them. Further, this paper discusses a scheduling mechanism to handle contention of resources amongst groups. We developed and integrated a carrier aggregation module in network simulator NS3 to conduct extensive simulations. In different scenarios, we demonstrate improvements in terms of achieved base and enhancement layer throughputs, net downlink LTE-A throughput and satisfiability of the groups.