Optimal resource allocation scheme for LTE-A systems with carrier aggregation

To significantly enhance the overall capacity of future cellular systems, LTE-A specifications have recently introduced the possibility to make available multiple carriers for a given base station (this technique is known as Carrier Aggregation), thus increasing the number of physical resources available for mobile users. The Radio Resource Management process, which aims at distributing physical resources among users, as well as defining the most suitable transmission settings in terms of both modulation and coding schemes, takes place at layer 2 of the base station and it is performed by the packet scheduler entity. Without any doubt, the implementation of enhanced radio resource methodologies, able to jointly improve the overall network capacity and the quality of service offered to mobile terminals, becomes more challenging when the Carrier Aggregation configuration is enabled. This paper proposes a novel approach, namely the 3 Dimensional Scheduler, which is built on 3 different layers interact each other to optimally distributing radio resources by taking into account users position, the experienced channel qualities, and requirements of active requirements. The effectiveness of the proposed approach have been evaluated through computer simulations carried out with the LTE-Sim simulator. Obtained results demonstrate that the proposed solution outperforms other well-known strategies, thus guaranteeing the highest throughput, the lowest packet loss ratio, the lowest packet delays, and highest MOS.