Intercell Interference-Aware Scheduling for Delay Sensitive Applications in C-RAN

Abstract: Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) architecture is a new mobile network architecture that enables cooperative baseband processing and information sharing among multiple cells and achieves high adaptability to nonuniform traffic by centralizing the baseband processing resources in a virtualized baseband unit (BBU) pool. In this work, we formulate the utility of each user using a convex delay cost function, and design a two-step scheduling algorithm with good delay performance for the C-RAN architecture. In the first step, all users in multiple cells are grouped into small user groups, according to their interference levels and estimated utilities. In the second step, channels are matched to the user groups to maximize the system utility. The performance of our algorithm is further studied via simulations, and the advantages of C-RAN architecture is verified.