Packet Scheduling for Real-Time Communication

over LTE Systems

A Comparative Study of Dynamic and Semi-Persistent Scheduling Schemes

Avishek Patra

Volker Pauli, Lang Yu

RWTH Aachen University

Aachen, Germany
avishek.patra@rwth-aachen.de

Nomor Research GmbH

Munich, Germany
{pauli, yu}@nomor.de

Abstract With various packet-switched networks coming to

the fore, real-time services like voice and video, transmitted
traditionally using circuit-switched bearers, can have limited
capacity due to the limited availability of resource-granting
control channels. Such packets are frequent and require more
grants compared to other services like FTP. To compound the
issue, often these packets are large in size compared to available
resources for allocation. To improve the capacity of real-time
communication over LTE (-A), various scheduling methods are
being studied. However, often the packet sizes are unaccounted
for by these studies. This work deals with the development of
semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) algorithms based on wide-band
time-average SINR information for resource allocation to voice
traffic users, with a focus on large packets. A comparative study
between dynamic scheduling (DS) and developed SPS algorithms
is done to determine the suitable scheduling mechanism for voice
packets transmission over LTE (-A) systems in the downlink.
Keywordssemi-persistent scheduling; dynamic scheduling;
VoIP; Voice over LTE; radio resource management

I.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past decade, there has been a path-breaking shift

in the methods of communication, from just voicebased
communication to voice and databased communication in
cellular networks with the global mobile data usage doubling
every year since 2006 [1]. To cater to the ever-increasing
demand for higher data rates, various data-centric standards
such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Long Term
Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) standards from 3GPP have
come up. To meet the required capacity and coverage, various
Radio Resource Management (RRM) algorithms such as
Hybrid ARQ (HARQ), Link Adaptation (LA), Channel
Quality Indication (CQI) and Packet Scheduling (PS) are
implemented in LTE (-A). One of the main feature of LTE (A) is that it is supported by packet switched bearers instead of
circuit switched bearers. Hence, transmission of voice requires
a VoIP-based solution in LTE (-A) that would have at least
same coverage and capacity as 2G and 3G networks [2].
For data packets in LTE (-A), allocation of resources are
done by schedulers in a dynamic fashion. Based on the
immediate requirement of the user, allocation of resources is
done per Transmission Time Interval (TTI). Physical

978-1-4799-0543-0/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

Downlink Control Channels (PDCCH) plays the major role in

signalling resource allocation. Dynamic allocation works well
for data packets, which are infrequent and non-periodic.
Compared to this, voice and video traffic are bursty in nature
and consists of periodically repeating packets and silence
periods. Problem arises with respect to real-time packet
scheduling when multiple users try to access resources in a
single TTI as the allocations of new grants are limited to the
number of available PDCCHs. To compound the problem,
real-time packets are often large and available Physical
Resource Blocks (PRBs) may not be able to accommodate
them. Although to overcome the scheduling problem, different
persistent, semi-persistent and modified dynamic resource
scheduling algorithms have been studied [3, 4], often the
packet sizes are not taken into consideration.
In this work, we aim to study the capacity achievable by
full dynamic scheduling and semi-persistent scheduling for the
downlink case in multi-user LTE (-A) scenario for voice
communication. For this, two novel semi-persistent scheduling
algorithms have been proposed, which partition large packets
before transmitting them. Based on the partitioning method,
these leftovers are transmitted dynamically or semipersistently. Also, contrary to previous works, which use
instantaneous CQI information, this work is based on timeaveraged wideband SINR information.
The work is organised as follows: Section II briefly
discusses the different scheduling schemes and importance of
packet size consideration in scheduling. Section III elaborates
the semi-persistent scheduling algorithms developed. In
Section IV, the different simulation specifications and
scenarios are explained and the results obtained from the
comparative study between semi-persistent and dynamic
scheduling methods are presented. Finally, we conclude the
work in Section V.
II.

BACKGROUND CONCEPTS

A. Voice over LTE

In voice traffic, the voice packets are periodic in nature
with a period of inter-packet arrival interval. Although voice
data rates are low compared to data traffic, being real-time,
transmission of voice over LTE (VoLTE) system is highly

B. Scheduling Schemes
In this section, various scheduling schemes such as
dynamic, persistent, semi-persistent and talk-spurt based
persistent scheduling are briefly explained.
1)
Dynamic Scheduling: In DS, queued packets of the
users are scheduled every TTI by allocating the required PRBs
and the transmission format combination (TFC) to the users
(based on SINR information). As these resource grants are
sent via PDCCHs, VoIP capacity using DS may be limited by
the PDCCH limit. A variation of DS is by using the concept of
packet bundling, where consecutive packets of the same user
are queued and bundled together before being transmitted.
Although this may increase capacity [6], packet bundling may
increase transmission delay.
2)
Persistent Scheduling: Persistent scheduling is the
process of allocation of fixed time and frequency resources to
the user along with fixed TFC for the entire call duration or
duration of burst [4]. This is advantageous in comparison to
DS as the capacity is not limited by the available PDCCH.
However, it is highly inefficient in resource utilization as the
resources are dedicated for long durations even though there is
no transmission of VoIP packets. Also, the capacity is limited
to the bandwidth available as maximum capacity possible C =
(1000 x N)/B, where B bandwidth/user in KHz and N
Total bandwidth in MHz. Also, lack of link adaptation may
reduce the user experience.

4)
Talk-Spurts based Scheduling: As silence periods
consume half the duration of the talk burst or voice call, talkspurt based scheduling [4] aims at allocating PRBs every talkspurt and deallocating PRBs at the end of the spurt. TFC
remains same for each spurt. The Silence Insertion Descriptors
(SIDs) are transmitted in a dynamic basis, which consumes
PDCCH but as they are less frequent compared to voice
packets, talk-spurt based scheduling perform better than full
dynamic scheduling. The resources for voice packets can
either be allocated for both transmission and retransmission or
only transmission, with retransmission being dynamically
scheduled.
C. Large VoIP Packets and concept of leftovers
For scheduling algorithm, there are three main processes initial allocation, periodic allocation and retransmission of
VoIP packets and SIDs - that have been considered in most of
the literatures [3-7]. An important issue often ignored is
regarding the size of the VoIP packets compared to the
available PRBs for allocation. Conflict in the schedulers
would arise if the required number of PRBs for a user at a
given TTI is greater than the number of available PRBs. It is
important to consider the large packets and the possibility of
transmission of the leftovers any real-time communication
where the QoS depends on the continuous uninterrupted
transmission and reception. Fig. 1 shows the ratio of VoIP
packets requiring leftover to total VoIP packets in the
downlink scenario to underline the importance of considering
leftover transmission.
III.

SEMI-PERSISTENT SCHEDULING FOR VOLTE

With the basic idea of DS scheme explained, in this

section, we look towards the SPS algorithms for scheduling of
1

1.0

VoIP Packets with Leftovers in Downlink

15

0.5
0.5

10

10

0.00

3)
Semi-Persistent Scheduling: SPS takes the advantage
of both dynamic and persistent scheduling. In this scheme, the
users are allocated resources for an extended period for

80

15

Total Packets
Packets with
Leftovers
Percentage of
Packets with
Leftovers

5
90

90

100

100

110

110

120

120

130

130

140

140

150

150

160

160

170

170

180

180

190

190

200

200

Number of Users
Fig. 1. Ratio of VoIP packets requiring leftover to total VoIP packets

Leftover Percentage

To meet these requirements, robust packet scheduling is

required. PDCCH is important in scheduling as it provides
user equipments (UEs) information about the scheduled
channels primarily, the allocated Physical Resource Blocks
(PRBs), and modulation and coding schemes (MCS) for
both the uplink and downlink. Allocation of resources is
normally done using Dynamic Scheduling (DS) algorithm for
the data packets. However, as voice packet transmission is
periodic with regular voice packets, with the possibility of
large number of users vying for resource in a TTI, the number
of available PDCCHs for granting new resources can limit the
possible allocation. With only 1-3 symbols of each carrier in
each PRB allocated for control signal, this may not only
increase call drop rate but also may fail in providing the
required QoS to the existing users. To overcome this
limitation, various resource scheduling algorithms other than
dynamic scheduling are studied.

transmission of voice packets. At the end of the burst, the user

resources are deallocated and are allocated to another user.
The TFC may be changed for the duration of the burst based
on the channel state information. Thus, PDCCH are required
only in case of new resource allocation, for changing of the
TFC or transmission power within a burst. For the
retransmission of the packets, they are dynamically scheduled
and this also requires the PDCCH resources.

Total VoIP Packets and

Leftover VoIP Packets

sensitive to transmission latency and loss of packets. Thus,

even though packet switching may increase resource usage
efficiency through multiplexing, it has the limited capability of
guaranteeing the required QoS. E-UTRAN is expected to meet
the capacity limit set by the previous 2G and 3G standards. In
this context, a satisfied user is defined as the user receiving
98% of the packets within the acceptable end-to-end delay
also known as the delay budget [5]. For a VoLTE system, the
capacity is defined as the number of users served in the cell
such that 95% of the users are satisfied [8].

VoIP packets, designed to take into account the effects of

large packets. To resolve the problem, two strategies of
allocating PRBs have been adopted with variations based on
partitioning and transmission of leftovers.
A. Non-Segmentation based Semi-Persistent Scheduling
In Non-Segmentation based Semi-Persistent Scheduling
(NS-SPS) scheme, when a packet arrives at the transmission
buffer initially, users are allocated resources based on
availability and feasibility of PRBs for the initial packet. This
is referred as Initial Allocation. For this, new TFCs are chosen
and hence, PDCCH is required to signal the grant for initial
allocation. For further periodic arrival of packets, PRBs are
automatically reserved for the users and allocated periodically
(with the repetition interval known as SPS Interval) till the end
of the talk burst, with the same TFC as used for previous
transmission being used. This is termed as Periodic
Allocation. In case a packet requires less PRBs compared to
the reserved ones, then the extra PRBs are released with the
new allocation being recorded for future reservation. If the
required PRBs are more, then extra PRBs are added to the
previous reservation or a completely new set of PRBs are
chosen depending on feasibility. Any change of reserved
PRBs, TFC or transmission power requires new grant
allocation through PDCCH. If no packets are received after
the SPS Interval, then the PRBs are dynamically allocated to
other users. In case no further packet is received even after the
pre-determined active period of the user, the user is assumed
to be dormant, after which the PRBs remain no longer
reserved for the user. For further transmission, the user is
treated as a new user.
For either of the two transmission processes, the packets
may require more PRBs than the available for the TTI. As
real-time communication is delay sensitive, queuing of such
packets until PRBs are available may reduce the QoS. Hence,
for such large packets, the available PRBs are allocated for a
part of the packet while the leftover is transmitted in the
subsequent TTIs on a dynamic basis in a process known as the
Leftover Allocation. The dynamic transmission of leftover
requires availability of PDCCH for grant allocation.
For any of the allocation process, in case of packet loss,
Retransmission of packets takes place in a dynamic fashion.
Thus, the developed NS-SPS algorithm can be separated into
four parts with the following order of priority of allocation: (a)
Periodic Allocation, (b) Leftover Allocation, (c)
Retransmission, and (d) Initial Allocation. Fig. 2. below shows
the basic block diagram of the NS-SPS algorithm.
B. Segmentation based Semi-Persistent Scheduling
The basic process of Segmentation based Semi-Persistent
Scheduling (S-SPS) algorithm is same as NS-SPS. The
variation is only in term of allocation of PRBs to large
packets. When packets are large and require more PRBs than
the available or feasible, they are divided into multiple
segments. The number of segments is calculated by dividing
the packet size by the available/ feasible PRBs, such that the
obtained number is a factor of the SPS Interval. For example,
using 20 ms as SPS Interval, the possible numbers of segments
are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10 and 20. The number of PRBs for these

segments equals the number of available/ feasible PRBs at the

present TTI (that is, the TTI when the packet is segmented).
These segments are transmitted periodically within the SPS
Interval of 20 ms before the arrival of the next regular packet.
Effectively, by segmentation, the SPS Interval is reduced, such
that no new grants are required for the allocations of segments
2, 3 Thus, for each segment, reservation of PRBs is done
for the duration of SPS Interval and these segments use the
same TFC and transmission power for the SPS Interval. As
this algorithm does not contain a separate Leftover Allocation
step, the three allocation steps in order of priority are as
follows: (a) Periodic Allocation, (b) Retransmission, and (c)
Initial Allocation. Fig. 3. below shows the basic block diagram
of the S-SPS algorithm while Fig. 4. shows the difference in
allocation process of large packets in NS-SPS and S-SPS.
C. Additional Points
Some of the additional points are elaborated below:
1)
NonAvailability of PDCCH: In case of PDCCH nonavailability for Periodic Allocation of resources, as allocation
of new grants cannot be done for this TTI, the grant for the
previous transmission is used even if it is not optimal for the
present situation. For other allocation processes, no further
allocation is possible for the given TTI.
PERIODIC ALLOCATION
FOR NS -SPS USERS

TFC SELECTION AND PRB

RESERVATION FROM
PREVIOUS PERIODIC
ALLOCATION

SEMI -PERSISTENT
SCHEDULING

DYNAMICALLY SELECT PRBs & TFC

LEFTOVER ALLOCATION
FOR NS - SPS USERS

DYNAMIC
SCHEDULING

DYNAMICALLY SELECT PRBs & TFC

RETRANSMISSION FOR
NS-SPS USERS

STORE TFC SELECTION

AND PRB RESERVATION
FROM INITIAL
ALLOCATION

DYNAMIC
SCHEDULING

DYNAMICALLY SELECT PRBs & TFC

INITIAL ALLOCATION
FOR NEW NS -SPS
USERS

SEMI -PERSISTENT
SCHEDULING

Fig.2. Block Diagram - Non-Segmentation based Semi-Persistent Scheduling

PERIODIC ALLOCATION OF
SEGMENTS FOR S -SPS
USERS

TFC & PRBs FROM

PREVIOUS PERIODIC
SEGMENT ALLOCATION

SEMI -PERSISTENT
SCHEDULING

PERIODIC ALLOCATION OF
PACKETS FOR S -SPS
USERS

TFC & PRBs FROM

PREVIOUS PERIODIC
PACKET ALLOCATION

SEMI -PERSISTENT
SCHEDULING

DYNAMICALLY SELECT PRBs & TFC

RETRANSMISSION FOR
S-SPS USERS

DYNAMICALLY SELECT PRBs & TFC

INITIAL ALLOCATION FOR

NEW S-SPS USERS

STORE TFC SELECTION

AND PRB RESERVATION
FROM INITIAL PACKET /
SEGMENT ALLOCATION

DYNAMIC
SCHEDULING

SEMI -PERSISTENT
SCHEDULING

Fig.3. Block Diagram of the Segmentation based Semi-Persistent Scheduling

TTIs
PRBs

(a)
TTIs
PRBs

01

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

16

SPS Interval
Large Packets requiring PRBs greater than available/feasible
01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

16

Leftover Allocation
Non-Segmentation based allocation of Large Packets

(b)
TTIs
PRBs

02

01
S1

(c)

02

03
S2

04

05
S3

06

07
S4

08

09

16

Segments
Segmentation based allocation of Large Packets

Fig.4. Difference in allocation process of Large Packets in Non-Segmentation

based and Segmentation based Semi-Persistent Scheduling Algorithm

2)
Information Carry-forward: For both the algorithms,
information such as the TFC used, reserved PRBs, last
scheduled time, transmission power and number of segments
(only in case of S-SPS) are recorded in a database. This
database enables the successful semi-persistent allocation of
resources for further TTIs.
IV.

SIMULATION SCENARIO AND RESULTS

All the simulation cases were done in a three tier diamondpattern macro scenario with 3-sector sites. The deployment of
the users is on a random basis. The traffic model used for the
VoIP capacity analysis is Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) audio
codec with bit rate of 12.2 kbps. In this simulation, the active
period of user is considered to be 20 ms. If no packet is
received from user within 20 ms, the user is assumed to be
dormant. The simulations were done for the downlink scenario
in a single cell with randomly distributed users. For the
simulation scenarios, the number of users varied from 90 to
200, with an increment of 10 users in each scenario. In each
scenario, simulation was done for 15 x 105 TTIs or 1500
seconds, with the position of the users being randomly
shuffled every 30 seconds. The measurements are obtained for
delay budgets varying from 40 ms to 100 ms (with a step of 10
ms). The main simulation parameters are given in Table I
whereas the parameters related to VoIP traffic are listed in
Table II. The performance of the three algorithms for different
scenarios is shown in Fig. 5. The comparison of performance
of the three different algorithms for a delay budget of 70 ms
and 90 ms are shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 respectively.
It must be noted that while for DS, the TFC selection is
based on the CQI reporting, in NS-SPS and S-SPS, TFCs
depend on time-averaged wideband SINR measurements. As
can be observed from Fig. 5, the percentage of satisfied users
is directly proportional to the increase in delay budget and is
inversely proportional to the decrease in the number of users
in the cell. For DS in Fig. 5 (a), the rate of increase in user
satisfaction percentage with respect to the increase of delay
budget and decrease of user per cell are similar. For the delay

budget of 50 ms, 95% users are satisfied for 110 users per cell.
With the increase of delay budget to 70 ms, the capacity
increases to 125. In NS-SPS, as users are semi-persistently
scheduled, there is no (or rather reduced) dynamic access and
hence, PRBs are allocated periodically to all the users that can
be accommodated. Fig. 5 (b) shows that for NS-SPS,
percentage of satisfied users in downlink gradually decreases
with the increase of the number of users in the cell till a
threshold value after which the percentage of satisfied users
falls drastically. If the number of users goes beyond the
maximum user threshold, no more users can be accommodated
due to unavailability of unreserved PRBs even if the delay
budget is increased. In the given results, the threshold of
maximum users is approximately 175 users. The increase in
the percentage of satisfied users with respect to increasing
delay budget is gradual. Although at a lesser rate, it occurs as
with more time, the chances of successful transmission of
leftover packets and retransmissions increases. For the delay
budget of 50 ms, the percentage of satisfied users is 95% for a
cell capacity of 120. For an increased delay budget of 70 ms,
95% users are satisfied for a cell capacity of 160 users per cell.
The downlink behavior of the S-SPS algorithm is illustrated in
Fig. 5 (c). As can be observed from the figure, the variation of
percentage of satisfied users for S-SPS with respect to increase
of delay budget and with respect to decrease of user per cell is
similar. From the results, it can be seen that for a delay budget
of 50 ms, 95% users are satisfied for a cell capacity of 90
users whereas for a delay budget of 70 ms, the capacity
increases to 110 such that 95% users are satisfied.
TABLE I.

MAIN SIMULATION PARAMETERS

Parameter
Cellular Layout
Inter-site distance
Shadow Model
Shadow Standard Deviation
Thermal Noise Density
Noise Figure at UE
System Bandwidth
Carrier Frequency
Sub-frame duration
Duplexing
Carrier per PRB
Frequency Reuse
DRX
No. of PDCCH
Bundling
Link Adaptation
Max. eNB Transmission Power
eNB Height
Max. UE Transmission Power
UE Height/ Mobility
Downlink Antenna Configuration
Downlink Antenna Gain
HARQ Scheme
No. of HARQ Processes
Max. HARQ Retransmission
CQI Delay (only for DS)
CQI Report Rate (only for DS)
CQI Resolution (only for DS)
CQI Report Rate (only for SPS)
CQI Resolution (only for SPS)
Simulation duration

Value
Hexagonal grid with 3-sector sites
500 m
2D uncorrelated grid with bilinear
interpolation
8 dB
-174 dBm/Hz
9 dB
5 MHz
2GHz
1 ms
FDD
12
1
Enabled
4 for Uplink; 4 for Downlink
No
Fast OLLA
46 dBm
32 m
23 dBm
1.5 m/ 3 kmph
2 x Transmitter; 2 x Receiver
14 dBi
Incremental Redundancy
8
4
4 TTI
20 ms
2 PRBs
Beginning of talk-spurt
Wideband CQI
1500 sec

TABLE II.

VOIP TRAFFIC PARAMETERS

Parameter
Call length
Average talk-spurt duration/ Voice activity
AMR Voice Codec Rate (burst rate)
SID Rate (during silence periods)
Voice packet inter-arrival time (SPS Interval)/ size
SID inter-arrival time/ size

(a)

(b)

(c)

Value
30 sec
3 sec/ 50%
12.2 kbps
0.24375 kbps
20 ms/ 40 bytes
160 ms/ 15 bytes

Dynamic scheduling

Non-segmentation based semi-persistent scheduling

Segmentation based semi-persistent scheduling

Fig. 5. Capacity analysis w.r.t. different delay budgets and users per cell for
different algorithms (Blue grid represents 95% users level)

As evident from the Fig. 6, the fitted curve for NS-SPS

algorithm can support a capacity of nearly 160 users.
Compared to NS-SPS algorithm, DS algorithm can support
about 125 users and S-SPS algorithm can support only 110
users per cell. Thus, NS-SPS algorithm can sustain a capacity
22% and 31% more compared to DS and S-SPS algorithms
respectively. The capacity gain for NS-SPS over DS occurs
due to the semi-persistent scheduling of the users, as they do
not have to compete for the available PRBs. This illustrates
the benefit of reservation of packets with periodic arrival.
However, this does not ensure that reservation of resources
always performs better than dynamic allocation. Even though
resources are reserved for S-SPS, the performance of S-SPS is
poorer compared to NS-SPS and DS for delay budget of 70
ms. This occurs mainly as the segmentation of packets in SSPS require more reservations within the SPS interval.
Compared to NS-SPS, the frequent reservation to some users
causes the number of allowable users for semi-persistent
allocation to reduce. Also, due to the segmentation process,
the loss of the segments can cause retransmission to start with
a delay in worst case equaling SPS Interval in case of loss of
the last segment (since the last segment is transmitted after a
period equaling SPS Interval after the transmission of the first
segment). This wait period may cause late delivery of the
packets beyond the acceptable delay. However, it must be
noted that the rate of decrease in user satisfaction in S-SPS is
very less compared to DS and NS-SPS. As can be seen in Fig.
7, with the increase in delay budget, S-SPS out performs both
NS-SPS and DS and support a higher capacity for delay
budget of 80 ms or higher. With a delay budget of 90 ms, a
capacity of 200 can be reached using S-SPS whereas the
capacity of DS and NS-SPS with 100 ms delay budget is about
155 (22% less) and 165 (17% less) respectively. Therefore, for
downlink at low delay budget, it can be concluded that the
performance of NS-SPS algorithm is better than DS and SSPS algorithms. However, with better optimization, S-SPS can
be a good candidate for downlink scheduling.
In terms of the efficiency of resource utilization, the results
can be seen in Fig. 8. The three sets of bar graphs compare the
percentage of resources used with each set showing the
percentage of resources used when the cell contained 90, 140
and 190 users respectively. The resources used by NS-SPS
and S-SPS are relatively similar and much better compared to
DS. The low resource utilization in DS can be attributed to the
lack of PDCCH available to allocate new resources to users in
queue every TTI. Compared to DS, in NS-SPS and S-SPS,
PDCCH is used only when certain changes are required and
not used for every transmission by the active users in every
TTI. Hence, this may reduce the capacity achievable using
DS. Comparing results for the 140 user scenario, the resources
used by NS-SPS is about 83% and for S-SPS, about 86%
PRBs are allocated. Compared to these, DS is only able to
allocate 35% of the resources available. For capacity of 90 and
190 users respectively, NS-SPS uses about 53% and 95%, SSPS uses 52% and 94%, while DS users only 25% and 38% of
the available PRBs. Also, it can be intuitively understood that
with the increase of number of users per cell, the PRB
requirement increases and this can be clearly seen in the
variation shown in the graph. However, it must be noted that
though NS-SPS and S-SPS definitely has advantage of consu-

Percentage of Satisfied Users

Percentage of Satisfied Users in Downlink

100

90

80

70

60

DS Curve-Fit
DS Markers
S-SPS Marker
S-SPS Curve-Fit
NS-SPS Marker
NS-SPS Curve-Fit
Target Level

100

120

140

160

180

200

Number of Users
Fig. 6. Comparative analysis of the performance of dynamic, segmentation
based semi-persistent and non-segmentation based semi-persistent scheduling
algorithms w.r.t. the percentage of satisfied users for delay budget of 70 ms

Percentage of Satisfied Users

Percentage of Satisfied Users in Downlink

100
95
90
85
80
75

DS Markers
DS Curve-Fit
NS-SPS Markers
NS-SPS Curve-Fit
S-SPS Markers
S-SPS Curve-Fit
Target Level

100

120

140

160

180

200

Number of Users
Fig. 7. Comparative analysis of the performance of dynamic, segmentation
based semi-persistent and non-segmentation based semi-persistent scheduling
algorithms w.r.t. the percentage of satisfied users for delay budget of 90 ms

communication packets arrive more frequently. Therefore it

requires efficient scheduling such that the capacity of the
system is not limited by the available control channel.
Towards this issue, different scheduling mechanisms have
been proposed in literature. However, many of the proposals
fail to take into account the possibility of large packet sizes for
voice transmission as well as other real-time applications. This
work deals with the development of semi-persistent
scheduling algorithms and comparing the capacity results with
the dynamic scheduling mechanism. Two variations of semipersistent algorithms developed are based on the segmentation
and non-segmentation of the large packets. While for
segmentation, the leftovers are semi-persistently scheduled,
non-segmented leftover packets are dynamically transmitted.
Also, unlike previous works, the SPS algorithms are based on
time-averaged wideband SINR information and not
instantaneous CQI information. Simulation of these algorithms
shows that the non-segmentation based semi-persistent
algorithm works best amongst the three in the downlink for
lower delay budgets. However, with the increase in delay
budget, segmentation algorithm works better than both
dynamic and non-segmentation based algorithms. Also, the
low resource utilization in dynamic scheduling shows that the
capacity is restricted due to unavailability of PDCCH to grant
new resources. On the other hand, VoIP capacity in SPS is
constrained by the PDSCH availability.
This work has focussed only on voice communication in
downlink using AMR 12.2 voice codec. As a future scope for
this work, simulations can be carried out for uplink scenarios
as well and also using video transmission packet using the
developed scheduling algorithms to determine the
performance for the algorithms with respect to video
transmission.
REFERENCES

Comparision of Resource Utilization

Percentage of PRBs used

100
90 Users
140 Users
190 Users

80

[1]
[2]
[3]

60

[4]

40

20

1
NS-SPS

2
S-SPS

3
DS

Fig. 8. Percentage of resource allocated using different scheduling algorithm

for 90, 140 and 190 users per cell

[5]

[6]

ming lesser PDCCH, in terms of PDSCH and amount of

resource usage, DS performs better than NS-SPS and S-SPS.
[7]

V.

CONCLUSION

As LTE (-A) is based on packet switching real-time

services like voice communication require VoIP based
solution. Therefore, scheduling assumes importance as, unlike
data communication over a packet switched network, real-time

[8]

"Cisco visual networking index: Global mobile data traffic forecast

update, 2010-2015," white paper, Cisco Systems Inc., Feb. 2011.
M. Anehill; M. Larsson; G. Strmberg; E. Parsons, "Validating voice
over LTE end-to-end," white paper, Ericsson Review, Jan. 2012.
D. Jiang; H. Wang; E. Malkamaki; E. Tuomaala, "Principle and
Performance of Semi-Persistent Scheduling for VoIP in LTE System,"
International Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and
Mobile Computing (WiCom, 07), pp.286-2864, 21-25 Sep. 2007.
J. Puttonen; N. Kolehmainen; T. Henttonen; M. Moisio, "Persistent
packet scheduling performance for Voice-over-IP in evolved UTRAN
downlink," IEEE 19th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor
and Mobile Radio Communications, (PIMRC08), pp.1-6, 15-18 Sep.
2008.
M. Muhleisen; B. Walke, "Evaluation and improvement of VoIP
capacity for LTE," 18th European Wireless Conference (EW12), pp.17, 18-20 Apr. 2012.
J. Puttonen; T. Henttonen; N. Kolehmainen; K. Aschan; M. Moisio; P.
Kela, "Voice-Over-IP Performance in UTRA Long Term Evolution
Downlink," IEEE 67th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTCS08),
pp.2502-2506, 11-14 May 2008.
Y. Fan; P. Lunden; M. Kuusela; M. Valkama, "Efficient Semi-Persistent
Scheduling for VoIP on EUTRA Downlink," IEEE 68th Vehicular
Technology Conference (VTCF08), pp.1-5, 21-24 Sep. 2008.
"LTE physical layer framework for performance verification," 3GPP
R1-070674, St Louis, USA, 12-16 Feb. 2007.