Performance of WiMAX packet schedulers for multi-class traffic

Abstract

With the increasing demand for multimedia services on wireless networks, it is important to optimise air interface parameters to maximise throughput and QoS. In this paper, we examine the effect of WiMAX burst mapping and Round Robin - based packet schedulers on multimedia traffic and network capacity. In this work, we have simulated the IEEE802.16e air interface to examine the downlink channel performance in terms of subframe usage and subframe wastage. The paper presents simulation analysis of the IEEE802.16e downlink service flows for multimedia traffic using an OPNET model. Comparing the characteristics of the service flow parameters, the packet schedulers and the subframe resource allocation methods, we define a new scheduling algorithm based in the service flows QoS configured parameters and the WiMAX OFDMA subframe structure. The proposed new MDRR packet-scheduling algorithm for multimedia traffic shows improvements in the allocation procedures reducing the wastage from 40% down to 20%, improving subframe usage from 60% to 80% leading to serve 10 more users in the network.