Scheduling for small delay in multi-rate multi-channel wireless networks

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of designing scheduling algorithms for multi-channel (e.g., OFDM-based) wireless downlink systems. We show that the Server-Side Greedy (SSG) rule introduced in earlier papers for ON-OFF channels performs well even for more general channel models. The key contribution in this paper is the development of new mathematical techniques for analyzing Markov chains that arise when studying general channel models. These techniques include a way of calculating the distribution of the maximum of a multi-dimensional Markov chain (note that the maximum does not have the Markov property on its own), and also a Markov chain stochastic dominance result using coupling arguments.