A unified framework for opportunistic fair scheduling in wireless networks: a dual approach.

In this paper, we propose a unified framework for opportunistic fair scheduling in wireless systems. We consider a TDMA type of multiple access scheme, in which only one user can be scheduled in each time-slot. For opportunistic fair scheduling in such a system, some nice frameworks have been developed in the previous works, such as Agrawal and Subramanian (Allerton conference on communication, control and computing, 2002), Liu et al. (IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications 19(10): 2053–2065, 2001) and Liu et al. (Computer Networks 41(4): 451–474, 2003). However, in this paper, we consider a more general problem that can accommodate more general types of fairness, and more general types of utility functions than those in the previous works. In addition to those generalizations, we develop a new framework for opportunistic fair scheduling based on the duality theory, which is different from those in the previous works. The duality theory is a well-defined theory in the mathematical optimization area. Hence, it can provide a unified framework for many different types of problems. In fact, we show that two different frameworks in Agrawal and Subramanian (Allerton conference on communication, control and computing, 2002), Liu et al. (IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications 19(10): 2053–2065, 2001) and Liu et al. (Computer Networks 41(4): 451–474, 2003) are special cases of ours. In addition, by using the unified framework developed in this paper, we can not only develop various opportunistic fair scheduling schemes but also analyze the developed algorithm more rigorously and systematically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]