Slice-Tailored Joint Path Selection & Scheduling in mm-Wave Small Cell Dense Networks

Network slicing allows the support of logical autonomous networks on top of a common infrastructure, offering a customized networking experience addressing distinct business demands. 5G networks are expected to support a plethora of applications and multi-tenant services, often with conflicting performance requirements. By enabling network slicing, 5G networks can assure the desired performance, but the limitation of radio spectrum brings new challenges in resource allocation and scheduling, especially for achieving the desired flexibility in resource sharing. In this context, this paper analyzes the joint path selection and backhaul link scheduling problem in a dense small cell network, assuming mm-Wave multi-hop backhaul. For supporting efficiently multiple slices with diverse Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), a slice-tailored resource allocation, scheduling, and selection of backhaul links and redundant paths is proposed. Such resource allocation process is complemented with adaptive routing and other flexible small cell related operations with particular focus on delay critical and throughput oriented slices.