Joint user association and fair scheduling for dual connectivity heterogeneous networks

Heterogeneous small cell network is one of the most effective solutions to overcome spectrum scarcity for the next generation of mobile networks. Dual connectivity (DC) can improve the throughput for each individual user by allowing concurrent access to two heterogeneous radio networks. In this paper, we propose a joint user association and fair scheduling algorithm (JUAFS) to deal with the resource allocation and load balancing issues for DC heterogeneous small cell networks. Considering different coverage sizes, numbers of users, and quality of experience characteristics of heterogeneous cells, we present a proportional fair scheduling for user association among cells and utilize interference graph to minimize the transmission conflict probability. Simulation results show the performance improvement of the proposed algorithm in spectrum efficiency and fairness comparing to the existing schemes.