Distributed Multiple Access for the Uplink of Multi-cell OFDMA Networks

It is expected that wireless data services with diverse QoS requirements will account for most of the traffic in the future 4G networks. Current centralized scheduling requires a substantial amount of overhead when the number of wireless devices is very large in order to collect users’ CSI (Channel State Information). We explore a distributed scheduling method for the next-generation cellular networks, in which the scheduling decisions are performed jointly by the wireless devices and the BSs in order to reduce the complexity at the BSs and to reduce the protocol overhead. We propose a distributed multi-channel multiple access protocol for the uplink data transfer in TDD (Time-Division Duplex) mode for a multi-cell network. The protocol may be used as a low-overhead scheduling solution for delay-tolerant services especially with large numbers of devices, and can coexist with the legacy centralized scheduling schemes.