Iterative Multi-user Scheduling Algorithm with Joint Resource Allocation and Cooperative-link Adaptation

A priority-based scheduling algorithm which exploits both the multi-user and cooperative diversity of a cell that uses cooperative-relaying is proposed and analysed. The proposed scheduling algorithm jointly performs resource allocation and link adaptation, trying to find the transmission scheme (cooperative or direct, coding rates and modulation orders) which would provide the required bit-rate, under a coded block error rate smaller than a target value, for a given user-terminal, using the minimum amount of radio resources. The analysis and simulation results presented in this paper show that the proposed joint scheduling and link adaptation algorithm provides greater spectral efficiency, while keeping the coded-block error rate below the target value, and smaller packet-delays than the “classical” non-cooperative approach.