An Energy-Quality Utility-Based Adaptive Scheduling Solution for Mobile Users in Dense Networks

There is an important trend in terms of user expectations of ubiquity in relation to rich media services and increase in number and range of devices with high specifications which enable access to such services, with very ambitious technical requirements. Providing this support is a very challenging issue, especially in urban dense network environments (DenseNet). Diverse solutions have been proposed, including deployment of femtocells in conjunction with the existing infrastructure, but there is still need for new approaches to balance resources and quality in current competitive market. This paper proposes an innovative three-phase adaptive scheduling solution [energy-quality utility-based adaptive scheduling solution (EQUAS)], which performs trade off between service quality and energy efficiency when allocating network resources to mobile users in a DenseNet. Resource allocation is performed according to a utility function that takes into account throughput, device energy consumption, and user mobility. Furthermore, adaptive reallocation is applied to increase network coverage and avoid dropping service. Testing results show how EQUAS outperforms two competitive approaches in terms of energy consumption and efficiency, data throughput, and estimated user satisfaction.