Performance Evaluation of Scheduling in 5G-mmWave Networks under Human Blockage

Abstract: The millimetre-wave spectrum provisions enormous enhancement to the achievable data rate of 5G networks. However, human blockages affecting the millimetre-wave signal can severely degrade the performance if proper resource allocation is not considered. In this paper, we assess how conventional schedulers, such as the Proportional Fair scheduler, react to the presence of blockage. Our results show that the resource allocation may disfavour users suffering from blockage, leading to low data rate for those users. To circumvent this problem, we show that the data rate of those users can be improved by using a scheduler adapted to react to upcoming blockage events. The adapted scheduler aims at proactively allocating the resources before a blockage happens, mitigating losses. Such adaptation is motivated by recent progress in blockage prediction for millimetre-wave signals in a dynamic human blockage scenario. Our extensive simulations indicate gains in the 1st percentile rate and fairness with respect to Proportional Fair scheduler when blockage conditions are severe.