QoS-based Joint User Selection and Scheduling for MU-MIMO WLANs

Abstract

The shift in Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) has gained attention due to its wide support in very high throughput Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) such as the 802.11ac. However, the full advantage of MU-MIMO can be utilized only with proper user selection and scheduling. Also, providing Quality of Service (QoS) support is a major challenge for these wireless networks. Generally, user scheduling is done with the acquisition of Channel State Information (CSI) from all the users. In MU-MIMO based WLANs, the number of CSI request increases with the number of users. This results in an increased CSI overhead and in degradation of the overall throughput. Most of the proposals in the literature have not addressed the contention in the CSI feedback clearly. Hence, in this paper a Joint User Selection and Scheduling (JUSS) scheme is discussed and its performance is evaluated in terms of throughput, delay, packet loss and fairness. In the performance comparison some wellknown Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols are considered. The proposed scheme not only enhances throughput, but also avoids contention during CSI feedback period.