IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 58, NO.
1, JANUARY 2010
The Effective Capacity of a Time Division Downlink Scheduling System
A. Balasubramanian and Scott L. Miller, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—A wireless communication system where a common
base station (BS) is scheduled to transmit information to mobile
users on a time division (TD) basis, under quality of service (QoS)
constraints is considered. The quality of service requirement is
specified in terms of the asymptotic decay rate of the buffer
occupancy. The effective capacity of this system is characterized
and the optimal scheduling scheme which achieves the boundary
of the effective capacity region is found. It is further shown
that the optimal scheduling scheme without quality of service
constraints and the opportunistic scheduling schemes fall out as
special cases of a more generalized class of scheduling schemes
derived in this paper.
Index Terms—Information rates, scheduling, time division
multiplexing, quality of service (QoS), effective capacity.
I. I NTRODUCTION
F UTURE wireless communication networks are expected
to support high traffic and at the same time provide reli-
able service to delay sensitive applications. Hence, there has
been an increasing interest in the recent past for understanding
and evaluating the performance of wireless communication
systems not only based on Shannon capacity, but also on
QoS in terms of delay sensitivity. Such an analysis becomes
essential if one considers real-time services like multimedia
video conference or VoIP because the key QoS metric is to
ensure delay bounds rather than achieving spectral efficiency.
A great deal of research has been devoted to understanding
how to design systems to enhance spectral efficiency, for
example [3]. Information theory has been the framework in
evaluating these techniques. However, information theory does
not take into account QoS requirements, and hence it becomes
necessary to seek tools that can help understand the interplay
between throughput and QoS. There have been some recent
contributions in trying to address these issues in different
ways. For example, [4] addresses the power-delay tradeoff.
In [1], [2] and [6], effective capacity has been used as a tool
in studying the performance of resource allocation of a point
to point system and MIMO systems with delay constraints. In
this paper, effective capacity is also used to study the problem
of finding the capacity region and the optimal scheduling
scheme for a two user downlink system with QoS constraints.
The insights learned from the two user problem are then used
to develop a sub-optimal scheduling scheme for the multiuser
scenario.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section
II gives a very brief overview of the concept of effective
Paper approved by Y. Fang, the Editor for Wireless Networks of the IEEE
Communications Society. Manuscript received September 14, 2008; revised
May 27, 2009 and July 9, 2009.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77840 USA (e-mail:
anantha@tamu.edu, smiller@ece.tamu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCOMM.2010.01.080122
0090-6778/10$25.00 ⃝
c 2010 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: Amal Jyothi College of Engineering. Downloaded on July 07,2010 at 12:56:56 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
73
capacity. The system model is detailed in Section III. The
optimal scheduling scheme with QoS constraints and the
effective capacity region is derived in Section IV for the two-
user case. Section V contains numerical results. A simple
multiuser scheduling method based on the optimal two-user
scheduling scheme is proposed in Section VI. Finally Section
VII concludes the paper.
II. P RELIMINARIES
Inspired by the theory of effective bandwidth, the authors
in [6] proposed the concept of effective capacity, which is the
dual of effective bandwidth. Effective capacity can be defined
as the maximum arrival rate that a given service process can
support in order to guarentee a QoS requirement specified by
a parameter, 𝜃. In order to understand the meaning of this
parameter, consider a queuing system with stationary arrival
and service processes. Then the queue length process, 𝑄(𝑡),
can be shown to converge in distribution to a random variable,
𝑄(∞), such that
log(Pr{𝑄(∞) > 𝑥})
− lim = 𝜃.
𝑥→∞ 𝑥
The QoS parameter, 𝜃, specifies the exponential decay rate
of the buffer overflow probability as the buffer threshold, 𝑥,
increases to infinity. A higher 𝜃 indicates a stringent QoS
requirement, while a lower value of 𝜃 indicates a looser QoS
requirement. For a queuing system with constant input arrival
process, ℓ, and a variable service process, it has been shown in
[6] that the distribution of its queue length has an exponential
tail with rate 𝜃∗ , where 𝜃∗ is given by the unique solution
to 𝐸𝐶 (𝜃) = ℓ. Here, 𝐸𝐶 (𝜃) is the effective capacity function
given by
1
𝐸𝐶 (𝜃) = − log(𝔼{𝑒−𝜃𝑆[0,𝑇 ]})
𝜃𝑇
where 𝑇 is the time scale of the service process and the
expectation is over the service process offered in a time period
𝑇 , denoted by 𝑆[0, 𝑇 ]. Another way of looking at this problem
is to fix the decay rate, 𝜃, and seek the maximum constant
input arrival rate that can be admitted. Hence by considering
𝜃 as a QoS constraint, the problem is to maximize the effective
capacity 𝐸𝐶 (𝜃), for a given 𝜃. This is the point of view
followed in the rest of this paper. The reader is referred to
[1], [6], [8] and the references therein for more information
on this topic.
III. S TATEMENT OF THE P ROBLEM AND S YSTEM M ODEL
Consider the system shown in Fig. 1 where there is a
BS sending independent information to two wireless users.
There is a buffer associated with each user at the BS into
which messages intended for that user arrive at a particular
74 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 58, NO. 1, JANUARY 2010

User 1 plane such that user-1 is serviced if ℎ2 < 𝑔(ℎ1 ) and user-2 is
User 1
R1 serviced if ℎ2 > 𝑔(ℎ1 ). Here ℎ1 , ℎ2 are the channel power
gains of user-1 and user-2, respectively. More specifically,
scheduling schemes are desired which achieve a point on the
R2 boundary of the capacity region such that the effective capacity
of user-2 is maximized, given that the effective capacity of
User 2 user-1 is fixed (see also [5]). These points on the boundary
User 2
Base Station
of the capacity region can be obtained from the well known
optimization problem
Fig. 1. Downlink System Model with QoS constraints.
max 𝛽E𝐶1 (𝜃1 ) + (1 − 𝛽)E𝐶2 (𝜃2 ), (1)
where
rate. Furthermore, there is a QoS constraint, 𝜃𝑖 , for the buffer [ ]
1
corresponding to the 𝑖𝑡ℎ user which indicates the exponential E𝐶1 (𝜃1 ) = − log 𝔼 𝑒−𝜃1 𝑇1 𝑅1 [𝑚] ,
decay rate of the buffer overflow probability. The wireless 𝜃1 𝑇 1
1 [ ]
channels between the BS and the users are subject to i.i.d E𝐶2 (𝜃2 ) = − log 𝔼 𝑒−𝜃2 𝑇2 𝑅2 [𝑚] ,
Rayleigh block fading and there is an average power constraint 𝜃2 𝑇 2
of 𝑃 at the BS during each block. Let 𝑎𝑖 be the channel gain are the effective capacities
( of user-1
) and user-2 respectively,
𝑡ℎ 𝑃
of the 𝑖 user which is complex Gaussian with zero mean 𝑅𝑖 [𝑚] = 𝑊 log2 1 + ℎ𝑖 𝑁 𝑊 is the service that user 𝑖
𝑜
and unit variance. Accordingly, the magnitude, ∣𝑎𝑖 ∣, follows a gets at time 𝑚, and 𝛽 ∈ [0, 1]. Without loss of generality,
Rayleigh distribution. ∣𝑎𝑖 ∣ changes independently from block henceforth let 𝑁𝑜 𝑊 = 1 to simplify calculations. Since only
to block and is perfectly known at the BS. Let 𝑇𝑖 be the one user is serviced at time 𝑚, whenever 𝑅1 [𝑚] > 0 it follows
block length over which the 𝑖𝑡ℎ user’s fading process remains that 𝑅2 [𝑚] = 0, and vice-versa. Hence, the problem in (1) can
constant and can be interpreted as the coherence time of the be written as
𝑖𝑡ℎ user’s channel. The system is operated in a TD mode
where in each time slot only one of the wireless users gets max [ ( ) ( ) ]
service. Therefore, if the 𝑖𝑡ℎ user’s information is scheduled − 𝛽 log 𝔼 𝑒−𝜃1 𝑇1 𝑅1 [𝑚]=0 ℐ𝑈 + 𝑒−𝜃1 𝑇1 𝑅1 [𝑚]>0 ℐ𝑈
𝜃1 𝑇1 2 1
to be transmitted during a block, then the received signal of [ ]
( ) ( )
the corresponding user can be written as: (1−𝛽) −𝜃2 𝑇2 𝑅2 [𝑚]=0 −𝜃2 𝑇2 𝑅2 [𝑚]>0
√ − 𝜃2 𝑇2 log 𝔼 𝑒 ℐ𝑈1 + 𝑒 ℐ𝑈2
𝑦 𝑖 = 𝑎 𝑖 𝑃 𝑆𝑖 + 𝑛 𝑖 .
(2)
where 𝑆𝑖 is the transmitted signal of unit power, and 𝑛𝑖 is
where 𝑈𝑖 is the region in the ℎ1 − ℎ2 plane over which user 𝑖
the additive white gaussian noise (AWGN) with zero mean
is serviced and ℐ𝑈𝑖 (𝑖 = 1, 2) represents the indicator function,
and variance 𝑁𝑜 𝑊 (𝑁𝑜 is the power spectral density and 𝑊
defined by
is the bandwidth). Accordingly, the service rate provided to {
user 𝑖 at time 𝑚, is 𝑅𝑖 [𝑚] = 𝑊 log(1 + ∣𝑎𝑖 ∣2 𝑁𝑃 ) and an 1 if (ℎ1 , ℎ2 ) ∈ 𝑈𝑖 ,
𝑜𝑊 ℐ 𝑈𝑖 =
amount equal to this gets depleted from the 𝑖𝑡ℎ user’s buffer. 0 if (ℎ1 , ℎ2 ) ∈ / 𝑈𝑖 .
Let 𝛾𝑖 = 𝔼[∣𝑎𝑖 ∣2 ] (𝑖 = 1, 2) be the expected channel power Equation (2) can be written as
gains of the links from the BS to the wireless users. In this (
paper, the term ‘scheduling scheme’ refers to the manner in 𝛽
∫∞ ∫∞
min 𝜃1 𝑇1 log 𝑝1 (ℎ1 )𝑝2 (ℎ2 ) 𝑑ℎ1 𝑑ℎ2 +
which the BS services the users. For simplicity, henceforth let ℎ1 =0 ℎ2 =𝑔(ℎ1 )
2
∣𝑎𝑖 ∣ = ℎ𝑖 (𝑖 = 1, 2). )
Given the fact that the BS accurately knows the channel ∫∞ 𝑔(ℎ ∫ 1 ) −𝜃 𝑇 𝑅 [𝑚]
𝑒 1 1 1
𝑝1 (ℎ1 )𝑝2 (ℎ2 ) 𝑑ℎ1 𝑑ℎ2 +
power gains of each user, the coherence times and the QoS ℎ1 =0 ℎ2 =0
requirement, 𝜃𝑖 (𝑖 = 1, 2), it can devise strategies as to (
(1−𝛽) ∫∞ 𝑔(ℎ ∫ 1)
how the users are to be serviced. One scheme would to be 𝜃2 𝑇2 log 𝑝1 (ℎ1 )𝑝2 (ℎ2 ) 𝑑ℎ1 𝑑ℎ2 +
service a user solely based on the channel power gain (e.g., ℎ1 =0 ℎ2 =0
)
opportunistic scheme) which has been presented in [5] and ∫∞ ∫∞ −𝜃2 𝑇2 𝑅2 [𝑚]
[10]. This paper develops optimal schemes that makes use 𝑒 𝑝1 (ℎ1 )𝑝2 (ℎ2 ) 𝑑ℎ1 𝑑ℎ2 , (3)
ℎ1 =0 ℎ2 =𝑔(ℎ1 )
of all the available information such as the coherence times
( )
and the QoS constraint as well as the channel power gain in where 𝑝𝑖 (ℎ𝑖 ) = 1 exp − ℎ𝑖 is the pdf of an exponentially
𝛾𝑖 𝛾𝑖
servicing a user and it is shown that these schemes naturally distributed random variable with mean 𝛾𝑖 . After some algebra,
outperform the ones which does not take into account all this (3) reduces to
information. ( ( ) )
𝛽 ∫∞
min 𝜃1 𝑇1 log 𝑓1 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) 𝑑ℎ1 +
IV. T WO - USER O PTIMAL S CHEDULING S CHEME WITH ℎ1 =0
Q O S CONSTRAINTS ( ( ) )
(1−𝛽) ∫∞
𝜃2 𝑇2 log 𝑓2 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) 𝑑ℎ1 ,
As in [5], the problem of finding an optimal scheduling (4)
scheme reduces to finding a function ℎ2 = 𝑔(ℎ1 ) in the ℎ1 −ℎ2 ℎ1 =0

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BALASUBRAMANIAN and MILLER: THE EFFECTIVE CAPACITY OF A TIME DIVISION DOWNLINK SCHEDULING SYSTEM 75

where Step 4) For the assumed value of 𝛽, update 𝐾 according

[ to 𝐾 = 1−𝛽
( ) 1 ( ℎ1 ) ( )−𝑘1 𝛽 𝐶 using the value of 𝐶 obtained in
𝑓1 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) = exp − 1 + ℎ1 𝑃 step (3).
𝛾1 𝛾1 Step 5) Repeat steps (2) to (4) until convergence occurs.
]
( ( 𝑔(ℎ1 ) )) ( 𝑔(ℎ1 ) ) It was observed that the above algorithm typically
× 1 − exp − + exp − , (5) converged in about six to ten iterations.
𝛾2 𝛾2
[
( ) 1 ( ℎ1 ) 1 ( ) Consider the case when 𝜃1 = 𝜃2 = 𝜃. Taking a closer look
𝑓2 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) = exp − 𝐹 𝑘2 , 𝑔(ℎ1 )
𝛾1 𝛾1 𝛾2 at (8) (note that (8) is the same as (21)) in the limit as 𝜃 goes
] to zero,
( 𝑔(ℎ1 ) ) ⎡ ( )−𝜃𝑇1 𝑀𝑊 ⎤
+ 1 − exp − , (6)
𝛾2 1 − 1 + ℎ 1 𝑃 1−𝛽
⎢ ⎥
lim ⎣ ( )−𝜃𝑇2 𝑀𝑊 ⎦ = 𝜃→0
lim 𝐶,
and 𝜃→0 𝛽
1 − 1 + 𝑔(ℎ1 )𝑃
∫∞ ( )−𝑘2 ( ℎ2 )
𝐹 (𝑘2 , 𝑔(ℎ1 )) = 1 + ℎ2 𝑃 exp − 𝑑ℎ2 , ( )
𝛾2 log 1 + ℎ1 𝑃
ℎ2 =𝑔(ℎ1 ) 1−𝛽
( ) = , (9)
log 1 + 𝑔(ℎ1 )𝑃 𝛽
𝑘𝑖 = 𝜃𝑖 𝑇𝑖 𝑊 𝑀 (𝑖 = 1, 2), 𝑀 = log2 𝑒.
( ) 1−𝛽
𝛽
Note that the integrals defined in (4), (5) and (6) are bounded 1 + ℎ1 𝑃 −1
for 𝑘𝑖 ∈ [0, ∞) (𝑖 = 1, 2) (defined above). The optimal 𝑔(ℎ1 ) = . (10)
scheduling scheme is given by the following theorem. 𝑃
Theorem 1: Let This is precisely the optimal scheduling scheme derived in [5].
∫∞ Notice that the LHS of (9) follows from L’Hospital’s rule and
( )
𝐶𝑖 = 𝑓𝑖 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) 𝑑ℎ1 (𝑖 = 1, 2), the constant 𝐶 is easily shown to be 𝑇𝑇12 , when 𝜃 → 0 from
(5), (6) and (7). Letting 𝛽 = 0.5 in (10) gives the well known
ℎ1 =0
opportunistic scheduling scheme, 𝑔(ℎ1 ) = ℎ1 .
𝜃1 𝑇1 𝐶1 1−𝛽
𝐶= , 𝐾= 𝐶 (7)
𝜃2 𝑇2 𝐶2 𝛽 V. N UMERICAL R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
where 𝑓1 , 𝑓2 are defined in (5) and (6) respectively. The The case when 𝜃1 = 𝜃2 = 𝜃 is considered. The effective
optimal scheduling scheme, ℎ2 = 𝑔(ℎ1 ), that solves the capacities are computed using the optimal scheduling scheme
optimization problem in (4) and which achieves all the points for the case when 𝜃 = 0 (Shannon ergodic capacity) and
on the boundary of the rate region is given by 𝜃 = 5 × 10−5 , 9 × 10−5 , 2 × 10−4 , 4 × 10−4 and 2 × 10−3
( [( )−𝜃1 𝑇1 𝑀𝑊 ]) 𝜃2 𝑇−1
2𝑀𝑊
for the system parameters 𝑁𝑃 𝑜𝑊
= 15, 𝑇1 = 𝑇2 = 100 ms,
1
1 + 𝐾 1 + 𝑃 ℎ1 −1 −1 𝑊 = 10 KHz, and 𝛾1 = 𝛾2 = 1 in Fig. 2. One can clearly see
the loss in achievable throughputs of both users as 𝜃 increases.
𝑔(ℎ1 ) = . The reason for this behaviour may be explained due to the fact
𝑃
(8) that as 𝜃 increases, the input arrival rate must be controlled,
where 𝛽 ∈ [0, 1] and 𝐾 ∈ [0, ∞). which in turn limits the buffer length and hence the delay.
Proof: Refer to Appendix A. The case when 𝜃 = 0 eliminates the constraint on the buffer
As 𝛽 varies from 0 to 1, 𝐾 varies from 0 to ∞ (see (7)). delay and depends only on the service process, which produces
One can obtain a class of scheduling schemes by changing 𝐾 the Shannon ergodic capacity. Further, as 𝜃 becomes large
in (8) which in turn can be used in (3) to obtain the effective (e.g., 𝜃 = 2 × 10−3 ), the ability of the system to provide
capacity. (Notice that 𝐶 > 0 can be easily shown). For a equitable rates to users keeps decreasing. Hence for tight delay
given 𝛽, there exists an optimal value of 𝐾 that depends on constraints, sharing resources between the users becomes
𝐶 (see (7)) and it is to be noted that 𝐶 in turn depends on unproductive. Fig. 3 shows the effective capacity when user-1
the function 𝑔(ℎ1 ) in (8) (see also (5) and (6)). For the trivial and user-2 have different coherence times, 𝑇1 = 100ms and
case when 𝛽 = 0 (i.e, when only the effective capacity of 𝑇2 = 20ms. Although the average channel power gains of
user-2 is maximized), then the optimal solution is to always both users are the same (i.e., 𝛾1 = 𝛾2 = 1), the throughputs
service user-2 which implies that the function 𝑔(ℎ1 ) = 0 can of the users differ. This can be attributed to the fact that user-
be obtained from (8). Similarly,( when 𝛽 )= 1, 𝑔(ℎ1 ) = ∞ 1’s channel changes slowly w.r.t user-2’s channel and hence
′
can be obtained (by solving 𝑓1𝑔 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) = 0 in (20)). For the throughput offered to user-1 is less than that of user-2.
the general case when 𝛽 ∈ (0, 1), the following is a simple If we consider this phenomenon from the buffer perspective
algorithm to evaluate the value of 𝐶 and hence the optimal at the BS, the buffer corresponding to the user with the
scheduling scheme (i.e., 𝐾 in (7) and (8)). larger coherence time can support lower arrival rates than the
Step 1) Initialize 𝐾 to some positive value (e.g., 𝐾 = 1). user with the channel having a smaller coherence time. This
Step 2) Form 𝑔(ℎ1 ) from (8). phenomenon is nicely captured in this framework, which the
Step 3) Find 𝐶1 , 𝐶2 , and hence 𝐶 from (7) by using 𝑔(ℎ1 ) Shannon ergodic capacity cannot, as it does not account for
obtained in step (2). delay constraints.

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76 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 58, NO. 1, JANUARY 2010

35 ( )
θ=0 (11) can be thought ( ) the ℎ1 , ℎ2 . . . ℎ𝑁 plane
of splitting
θ=5x10−5 into 𝑁 regions 𝑈1 , 𝑈2 . . . 𝑈𝑁 , which requires finding a
distinct set of (𝑁 − 1) surfaces. This problem appears to be
−5
30 θ=9x10
−4
θ=2x10
θ=4x10
−4 mathematically intractable even for the case when 𝑁 = 3.
In what follows, a simple suboptimal scheme is presented for
Effective Capacity of User−2 (Kbps)

25 −3
θ=2x10
multiuser scheduling based on the optimal two user scheme
20 derived in (8).
For 𝑗 = 1, 2 . . . 𝑁 , let
( ( )−𝜃𝑗 𝑇𝑗 𝑀𝑊 )
( ) 𝛽𝑗
𝑔˜ ℎ𝑗 , 𝑇𝑗 = 1 − 1 + ℎ𝑗 𝑃
15
(12)
𝜃𝑗 𝑇 𝑗
10 Recall that the optimal scheduling scheme for the two user
case in (8) (see also (21)), is to service user 𝑖 for which
( ( ))
𝑖 = arg max ℓ𝑗 𝑔˜ ℎ𝑗 , 𝑇𝑗 (13)
5

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 where 𝛽1 = 𝛽, 𝛽2 = 1 − 𝛽, ℓ1 = 1 and ℓ2 = 𝐶 𝐶2 was obtained
1

Effective Capacity of User−1 (Kbps) from 𝐶 (see (7)) by the algorithm outlined in Section IV.
For the 𝑁 user problem, consider maximizing the sum rate
Fig. 2. Effective Capacity for the cases when 𝜃1 = 𝜃2 = 𝜃 =
0, 5 × 10−5 , 9 × 10−5 , 2 × 10−4 , 4 × 10−4 and 2 × 10−3 for the system of the effective capacities and also that all users have the
parameters 𝑇1 = 𝑇2 = 100 ms, 𝛾1 = 𝛾2 = 1 and 𝑁𝑃𝑊 = 15. same delay constraints (i.e., 𝛽𝑗 = 1/𝑁, 𝜃𝑗 = 𝜃 ∀ 𝑗 =
𝑜
1, 2, . . . 𝑁 ). For a given ((ℓ1 , ℓ2 . . . ℓ𝑁)), (𝑇1 , 𝑇2 . . . 𝑇𝑁 ) and
35
(ℎ1 , ℎ2 . . . ℎ𝑁 ), let ℛ𝑠𝑢𝑚 ℓ1 , ℓ2 . . . ℓ𝑁 denote the achievable
θ=0
−4
sum rate by using the scheme in (13). Then the possible set
θ=4x10
30
θ=6x10
−4 of sum rates for the scheme in (13) can be written as:
∪ ( )
ℜ𝑠𝑢𝑚 = ℛ𝑠𝑢𝑚 ℓ1 , ℓ2 . . . ℓ𝑁 (14)
( )
Effective Capacity of User−2 (Kbps)

25
ℓ1 ,ℓ2 ...ℓ𝑁
ℓ𝑗 ∈[0,∞] ∀ 𝑗=1,2...𝑁
20
Since maximizing the sum rate of effective capacities
implies maximizing the sum input arrival rates, a natural
15
scheme to accomplish this is to maximize the sum output
service rates (see also Fig. 1), for which the opportunistic
10 scheduling scheme is well known to be optimal. The average
sum rate of effective capacities achieved by the proposed
5 scheduling scheme in (13) for ℓ𝑗 = 1 (𝑗 = 1, 2 . . . 𝑁 ),
and that of the opportunistic scheme are compared in Fig. 4
for the case when 𝑁 = 5 with 𝑇1 = 20 ms, 𝑇2 = 70 ms,
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
𝑇3 = 80 ms, 𝑇4 = 100 ms, 𝑇5 = 120 ms. The reason that the
Effective Capacity of User−1 (Kbps)
proposed scheme yields a higher sum rate throughput can be
Fig. 3. Effective Capacity for the case when 𝜃1 = 𝜃2 = 𝜃 = 0, 4 × 10−4 attributed to the fact that it takes into account the channel
and 6 × 10−4 for the system parameters 𝑇1 =100 ms, 𝑇2 =20 ms, 𝛾1 = 𝛾2 =1 power gains and delay constraints as well as the channel
and 𝑁𝑃𝑊 = 15.
𝑜 coherence times in servicing a user, unlike the opportunistic
scheme which services the user solely based on the channel
power gains. This can also be seen from the optimal decision
VI. E XTENSIONS TO A M ULTIUSER S CENARIO region for maximizing the sum rate of effective capacities
The problem of finding the optimal scheduling scheme for of the opportunistic and the proposed scheme depicted in
the multiuser case can be written as Fig. 5 for the two user case. Further, when ℓ𝑗 = 1, 𝑇𝑗 = 𝑇
𝑁
∑ 𝑁
∑ (𝑗 = 1, 2, . . . 𝑁 ), the proposed scheme in (13) reduces to
max 𝛽𝑖 𝐸𝐶𝑖 (𝜃𝑖 ) such that 𝛽𝑖 = 1. (11) the opportunistic scheme (which implies that the opportunistic
𝑖=1 𝑖=1 scheme is a subset of the proposed scheme).
where 𝑁 represents the[ total number ] of users in the system,
1
𝐸𝐶𝑖 (𝜃𝑖 ) = − 𝜃𝑖 𝑇𝑖 log 𝑒 −𝜃𝑖 𝑇𝑖 𝑅𝑖 [𝑚]
represents the effective VII. C ONCLUSION
capacity of user 𝑖, 𝑇𝑖 represents the coherence time of the This letter characterizes the effective capacity of a downlink
𝑖𝑡ℎ user’s channel, 𝜃𝑖 represents the QoS constraint for the scheduling system with QoS constraints. A generalized class
𝑖𝑡ℎ user, and 𝑅𝑖 [𝑚] is the service rate of user 𝑖 at the 𝑚𝑡ℎ of optimal scheduling schemes for achieving the boundary
time instant. Let ℎ𝑖 be the channel power gain of user 𝑖. points of the capacity region for the two user problem is
Similar to the idea presented in Section IV on the operational derived. This paper unifies the class of capacity achieving
interpretation of (1) for the two user case, the problem in scheduling schemes for a given QoS constraint as well as

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BALASUBRAMANIAN and MILLER: THE EFFECTIVE CAPACITY OF A TIME DIVISION DOWNLINK SCHEDULING SYSTEM 77

14
variations [7] as follows. Let
Proposed Scheme
Opportunistic Scheme ( ∫∞ ( ) )
( ) 𝛽
12
𝐽 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) = log 𝑓1 ℎ1 , 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) 𝑑ℎ1 +
Average Sum Rate of Effective Capacity (Kbps)

𝜃1 𝑇 1
ℎ1 =0
( ∫∞ ( ) )
10
(1 − 𝛽)
log 𝑓2 ℎ1 , 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) 𝑑ℎ1 . (15)
𝜃2 𝑇 2
ℎ1 =0
8

where 𝑓1 , 𝑓2 are defined in (5) and (6) respectively. As

in Arfken ([7],Chap. 17), let, 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) = 𝑔(ℎ1 ) + 𝑠𝜂(ℎ1 ),
6 where 𝑔(ℎ1 ) is the function which minimizes (15), 𝑠 is any
constant, and 𝜂(ℎ1 ) represents an arbitrary variation. As the
objective function in (15) is not dependent of the derivatives
4
of the unknown function 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ), Euler’s method of finding
the unknown function reduces to [7]
[ ( )]
2
𝑑
𝐽 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) = 0, (16)
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
θ −3
x 10
𝑑𝑠 𝑠=0
Fig. 4. Average sum rate of the opportunistic and the proposed scheme for 𝑑[ ( )]
the case when 𝑁 = 5 with 𝑇1 = 20 ms, 𝑇2 =70 ms, 𝑇3 =80 ms, 𝑇4 =100 ms, 𝐽 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) =
𝑇5 =120 ms and 𝑁𝑃𝑊 = 50.
𝑑𝑠
𝑜

∫∞ ( ( ))( 𝑑𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) )

𝑑
2
𝑑𝑔1 𝑓1 ℎ1 , 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) 𝑑𝑠 𝑑ℎ1
10
𝛽 ℎ1 =0
Opportunistic Scheme
∫∞ ( ) +
𝜃1 𝑇 1
Proposed Scheme (T1=100ms, T2=75ms)
𝑓1 ℎ1 , 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) 𝑑ℎ1
Proposed Scheme (T1=100ms, T2=50ms)
ℎ1 =0
1 ∫∞ ( ( ))( 𝑑𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) )
10
𝑑
𝑑𝑔1 𝑓2 ℎ1 , 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) 𝑑𝑠 𝑑ℎ1
(1 − 𝛽) ℎ1 =0
∫∞ ( ) . (17)
𝜃2 𝑇 2
𝑓2 ℎ1 , 𝑔1 (ℎ1 ) 𝑑ℎ1
0 ℎ1 =0
h2

10

Let
𝑑( ) ′ ( )
𝑓𝑖 (ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 )) = 𝑓𝑖𝑔 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) (𝑖 = 1, 2). (18)
−1
𝑑𝑔
10

By noting that 𝑑𝑔1𝑑𝑠 (ℎ1 )

= 𝜂(ℎ1 ), evaluating (17) at 𝑠 = 0, and
using (16), (18) and (7) yields
(
∫∞ 𝛽 ′ ( )
𝜃1 𝑇1 𝐶1 𝑓1𝑔 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) +
−2
10
−1 0 1 2
10 10 10 10
h1 ℎ1 =0
)
1−𝛽 ′ ( )
𝑓 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) 𝜂(ℎ1 ) 𝑑ℎ1 = 0. (19)
Fig. 5. Decision region for maximizing the sum rate of the opportunistic and 𝜃2 𝑇2 𝐶2 2𝑔
the proposed scheme for the two user problem when 𝜃1 = 𝜃2 = 𝜃 = 10−4 .
Noting that (19) needs to be satisfied for any 𝜂(ℎ1 ), it follows
that
′ ( ) ′ ( )
demonstrates how the effect of various channel parameters and 𝛽 1−𝛽
𝜃1 𝑇1 𝐶1 𝑓1𝑔 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) + 𝜃2 𝑇2 𝐶2 𝑓2𝑔 ℎ1 , 𝑔(ℎ1 ) = 0, (20)
the QoS constraint influence the effective capacity. Finally, ′
𝑓1𝑔
based on the optimal two user scheduling scheme, a sub- 𝑓2𝑔
′ = − 1−𝛽
𝛽 𝐶.
optimal, yet effective scheme for multiuser scheduling is
proposed and shown to dramatically increase the achievable where 𝐶 is defined in (7). After some algebra, (20) works out
sum rates as compared to the commonly used opportunistic to be
scheduling. ( )−𝜃1 𝑇1 𝑀𝑊
1 − 1 + ℎ1 𝑃
1−𝛽
( )−𝜃2 𝑇2 𝑀𝑊 = 𝐶 = 𝐾. (21)
𝛽
A PPENDIX A 1 − 1 + 𝑔(ℎ1 )𝑃
P ROOF OF T HEOREM 1
Simplification of (21) yields the result in (8). This completes
the proof of theorem.
The optimization problem in (4) is a variational problem
which can be solved by using the technique of calculus of

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78
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Prof. Tie Liu of Texas
A&M University for his valuable discussions regarding
the preparation of this paper. A. Balasubramanian thanks
Dr. Lingjia Liu and Prof. Jianxin Zhou for inspiring discus-
sions.
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