Proportional Fairness Grouped Pairing Scheduling for VMIMO Uplink in Femtocell Systems

Multiple mobile nodes with single antenna can be paired to exploit Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) benefits using the Virtual MIMO (VMIMO) technique. The scheduling algorithm for such pairing needs to approach a compromise between overall throughput and user fairness performance. Femtocell environment, involving meager range and number of users, puts the constraint of ensured service to all users. A Proportional Fairness Grouped Scheduling (PFGS) algorithm is proposed in this paper that fulfills the above constraint while outperforming traditional scheduling techniques. The proposed algorithm groups users according to proportional fairness rank and distributes available Resource Blocks (RB) accordingly. The division of RB supports any configuration of user strength and number of antennas at Base Transceiver Station (BTS). Performance analysis of the proposed algorithm is presented in diverse system configurations, which shows considerable improvement in terms of throughput and resource distribution fairness as compared to traditional channel aware algorithms.