Quality of service cognizant scheduler for femtocell base stations
First Claim
1. A scheduling method for a femtocell base station in a cellular communication system including the femtocell base station and at least one mobile station connected to the femtocell base station, said mobile station running a plurality of applications, the method as implemented in said femtocell base station comprising the steps of:
- receiving data packets at said femtocell base station in said cellular communication system;
differentiating each of said received data packets based on its destination address and an associated application among said plurality of applications;
for each destination address, placing packets of each application in separate buffers, wherein applications are scheduled and one or more of the following system resources are allocated amongst scheduled applications;
femtocell base station transmit power, transmission code space, antennas when said femtocell base station is equipped with multiple antennas, and available bandwidth, such that the following are jointly maximized using multiple objective optimization;
goals of satisfaction of Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of each active application served by said femtocell base station, user and application priority level scaled fairness of service, and sum throughput of said femtocell base station;
transmitting head-of-line packets from each scheduled applications'"'"' buffer over a next transmission period; and
updating QoS requirements, current QoS satisfaction/dissatisfaction levels, observed and average channel qualities for a user, and average observed data rates for each application in time for a next scheduling decision.
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Abstract
A method and system are provided to schedule the transmissions to a plurality of applications for a plurality of users connected to a femtocell taking into account the quality of service (QoS) requirements of each application served while maintaining an efficient use of the wireless radio resources as well as a user and application weighted notion of fairness of service reception. The scheduler differentiates between not only different users but also between applications of each user, and schedules data transmission amongst these applications so that QoS requirements for all applications are satisfied.
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Citations
11 Claims
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1. A scheduling method for a femtocell base station in a cellular communication system including the femtocell base station and at least one mobile station connected to the femtocell base station, said mobile station running a plurality of applications, the method as implemented in said femtocell base station comprising the steps of:
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receiving data packets at said femtocell base station in said cellular communication system; differentiating each of said received data packets based on its destination address and an associated application among said plurality of applications; for each destination address, placing packets of each application in separate buffers, wherein applications are scheduled and one or more of the following system resources are allocated amongst scheduled applications;
femtocell base station transmit power, transmission code space, antennas when said femtocell base station is equipped with multiple antennas, and available bandwidth, such that the following are jointly maximized using multiple objective optimization;
goals of satisfaction of Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of each active application served by said femtocell base station, user and application priority level scaled fairness of service, and sum throughput of said femtocell base station;transmitting head-of-line packets from each scheduled applications'"'"' buffer over a next transmission period; and updating QoS requirements, current QoS satisfaction/dissatisfaction levels, observed and average channel qualities for a user, and average observed data rates for each application in time for a next scheduling decision. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A scheduling apparatus for a femtocell base station, in a cellular communication system including the femtocell base station and at least one mobile station connected to the femtocell base station, said mobile station running at least two applications, the apparatus comprising,
a plurality of buffers, each buffer storing data destined for a different active application or application type for each active user; -
a channel quality collector logic that receives instantaneous channel quality indicators from each active user prior to each scheduling interval and keeps track of average channel quality for each active user and average observed data rate for each active application of each active user where averaging is handled using a sliding window over a pre-defined duration of time; a user and application fairness logic that keeps a record of current QoS requirements of all active applications, as well as current satisfaction/dissatisfaction levels for QoS requirements of all applications, wherein a cellular operator or an owner of the femtocell set priority levels of all active users and applications or application types; and a scheduler for determining application rank of each active application and determining how system resources are divided amongst plurality of scheduled applications using a pre-determined scheduling algorithm; wherein applications are scheduled and one or more of the following system resources are allocated amongst scheduled applications;
femtocell base station transmit power, transmission code space, antennas when said femtocell base station is equipped with multiple antennas, and available bandwidth, such that the following are jointly maximized using multiple objective optimization;
goals of satisfaction of Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of each active application served by said femtocell base station, user and application priority level scaled fairness of service, and sum throughput of said femtocell base station.
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11. A scheduling method for a femtocell base station in a cellular communication system including the femtocell base station and at least one mobile device connected to the femtocell base station, each said mobile device running a plurality of associated applications or application types, the method as implemented in said femtocell base station comprising the steps of:
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receiving data packets; differentiating each of said received data packets based on said associated applications or application types and said mobile device; placing said data packets in separate buffers, one for each application or application types; scheduling transmission of said data packets over a next transmission period to optimize network resource utilization; and updating network resource utilization parameters used for said optimization for each of said applications or application types for the next scheduling decision; wherein applications are scheduled and one or more of the following system resources are allocated amongst scheduled applications;
femtocell base station transmit power, transmission code space, antennas when said femtocell base station is equipped with multiple antennas, and available bandwidth, such that the following are jointly maximized using multiple objective optimization;
goals of satisfaction of Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of each active application served by said femtocell base station, user and application priority level scaled fairness of service, and sum throughput of said femtocell base station.
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Specification