Improving the performance of cell edge users with fractional coordinated fair scheduling

In this study, the authors propose a fractional coordinated fair scheduling (FCFS) scheme for improving the performance of cell edge users in long term evolution (LTE-advanced) networks. To enhance the network spectral efficiency and reduce co-channel interference, they extend the inter-cell interference coordination technique for multi-sector cells. The sectors are coordinated in the sense that they are allowed to transmit simultaneously, if the neighbouring sectors co-channel interference is less than a threshold value. Accordingly, a coordinated scheduling scheme is proposed to transmit to a fraction of users, located in cell edges, with good channel conditions. The proposed scheme maintains fairness among the users using alpha-fair criterion. Furthermore, to reduce the computational complexity of the scheduling scheme, they propose a heuristic algorithm based on choosing an appropriate subset of users for scheduling computations. Performance evaluation of FCFS shows that the cell edge users' throughput improves because of the spectral efficiency enhancement and interference reduction. Moreover, FCFS achieves a higher fairness index with respect to a non-coordinated fair scheme.