Comparison of OFDMA Resource Scheduling Strategies with Fair Allocation of Capacity

Orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) provides possibilities to exploit diversity of a frequency selective fading channel by appropriate resource scheduling strategies. This paper presents the performance comparison of different strategies with fair allocation of transmission capacity in a typical multiuser scenario. The analyzed performance metrics comprise both throughput and delay, which are required for a comprehensive analysis regarding quality of service (QoS). The evaluation has been conducted by means of stochastic event-driven simulations of a WiMAX based OFDMA system. Therefore, the developed simulation tool provides a detailed implementation of both medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY). The presented results clarify the significant impact of different scheduling strategies on the tradeoff between throughput and delay.