Combined performance of packet scheduling and smart antennas for data transmission in EGPRS

The capacity of GERAN is expected to be limited by interference, particularly in urban areas, and by the quality of service (QoS) requirements demanded by the users. Smart antenna arrays employing beamforming techniques, commonly known as adaptive antennas (AA), are an efficient technology in mitigating interference in urban areas with low azimuth spread. In EGPRS, the packet data service of GERAN, resource scheduling is responsible for multiplexing users on shared physical channels in order to best fulfill QoS requirements. By using more efficient scheduling algorithms, the resulting QoS is enhanced and, ultimately, it may be exchanged for capacity. In this work, the QoS and capacity gains provided by an AA system and two scheduling algorithms in several EGPRS system configurations are shown. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that, when combined, a tighter reuse scheme, a base station AA system, and an enhanced scheduling algorithm can result in a capacity gain of up to approximately 450% over the reference scenario.