Generalized Proportionally Fair Scheduling for Multi-User Amplify-and-Forward Relay Networks

Providing ubiquitous very high data rate coverage in next generation wireless networks is a formidable goal, requiring cost-effective radio access network (RAN) devices, such as multi-user enabled amplify- and-forward (AF) relays, and fair radio resource management (RRM). To further this goal, we investigate multi-user enabled AF relays which multiplex user's data in orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). These relays are cost-effective, simpler to implement, and introduce less delay in comparison to other relay based routers. We devise a generalized proportionally fair (GPF) RRM framework for multi-user enabled AF relays. In GPF scheduling a single parameter is used to gradually change schedules from throughput optimal to proportionally fair. We formulate the GPF scheduling problem and due to its complexity devise a low complexity heuristic to solve it. We evaluate the performance of the heuristic with extensive simulations and show that the heuristic performs well.