QoS-Aware Load Balancing in 3GPP Long Term Evolution Multi-Cell Networks

In this paper, we investigate load balancing problem in 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) network. Since LTE network aims to serve heterogeneous users with different Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, the influence of load imbalance is quite different. For those users with minimum rate requirements, it may result in high block probability, while for others without minimum rate requirements, the throughput of boundary users may be degraded. In this paper, we take all the differences into account and formulate the problem as a multi-objective optimization problem. Then we analyze its complexity, and propose our solution framework, which includes QoS-guaranteed hybrid scheduling, QoS-aware handover for users with and without QoS requirements, and call admission control. Extensive simulations are conducted and the results show that the proposed framework leads to significantly better load balancing, and thus the decrease in call block probability of users with QoS requirements, and the increase in throughput of boundary best effort users.