Real-Time Algorithms for Combined eMBB and URLLC Scheduling

In modern communication networks, particularly in private 5G networks, the coexistence of devices with different quality of service requirements, such as ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), needs to be ensured. This necessitates efficient and real-time scheduling algorithms, despite the NP-hardness of such resource allocation problems. In this paper, we investigate scheduling algorithms that address this challenge. For this, we assume a punctured scheduling framework that initially allocates all resources among eMBB user equipments (UEs), while, subsequently, some of the allocated resources are punctured by incoming URLLC traffic. We propose a low-complexity algorithm that outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms and exhibits only a marginal performance gap compared to a computationally highly expensive commercial solver for the underlying optimization problem. Moreover, we investigate the influence of different scheduling algorithms under varying load conditions.