Performance Evaluation of Scheduling Strategies for LTE Networks in Downlink Direction

LTE (Long Term Evolution) networks have been introduced in 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) release 8 specifications, with an objective of high-data-rate, lowlatency and packet-optimized radio access technology. The QoS for multimedia services are defined in LTE specification. However the scheduling algorithms for supporting real time and non-real time application services are not specified. Therefore different scheduling strategies are proposed. This paper explores the performances of LTE Network for different proposed scheduling algorithms such as Proportional Fair (PF), MaximumLargest Weighted Delay First (M-LWDF), and Exponential Proportional Fairness (EXP/PF) by using the LTE-Sim network simulator. The evaluation is considered for a single cell with interference scenario for different flows such as video, best effort, and VoIP. The performance evaluation is conducted in terms of system throughput, fairness index, delay, and Packet Loss Ratio (PLR). Finally it will be concluded that all 3 scheduling algorithms are suitable for best effort flows, while M-LWDF and EXP/PF are suitable for video flows, and PF and EXP/PF are suitable for VoIP flows. Keywords—Long Term Evolution (LTE); LTE-Advanced; System Architecture Evolution (SAE); Evolved Packet System (EPS); Throughput; Scheduling algorithms; Performance evaluation.