Performance evaluation of schedulers in MIMO-OFDMA based cellular networks

In this paper, we investigate the performances of schedulers, which basically allocate the resources to multiple users based on different algorithms, in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) based cellular wireless networks. In addition to conventional OFDMA resources which are time and frequency, antennas are also considered as resource during scheduling process. After explaining the basic concepts of MIMO and OFDMA technologies, the performances of Round Robin (RR), Proportional Fair (PF) and Maximum Throughput (MT) scheduling algorithms are evaluated in Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. LTE system architecture including multiple antenna structure with the use of macro cell urban area channel model is considered. Shannon capacity and Jain's fairness index are utilized for performance evaluations. Additionally, the common trade-offs between maximizing capacity and achieving fairness are presented through Monte Carlo simulations.