Low-Complexity QoS-Aware Coordinated Scheduling for Heterogenous Networks

In this paper, we consider a heterogenous network (HetNet), where low-power indoor femtocells are deployed in the coverage area of the existing macro base station (MBS). This paper proposes a novel coordinated random beamforming and user scheduling strategy to improve the throughput of users served by the femtocell access point (FAP) while satisfying the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of users served by both MBS and FAP. The strategy, termed as QoS-Aware Coodinated Scheduling (QACS), requires limited coordination between the MBS and FAP, i.e., only the indexes of the qualified beams are shared. Exact statistical analysis for the ergodic achievable rate of both FAP and MBS with the proposed strategy are presented. Scheduling fairness is also addressed for the proposed QACS.