Low-complexity green scheduling for the downlink of coordinated cellular system

Energy efficiency (EE) is considered as a key enabler for the next generation of communication system. Equally, scheduling is an important aspect for efficient and reliable communication in multi-user system. In this paper, we propose a low-complexity green scheduling algorithm for the downlink of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) cellular system when considering that base station (BS) can coordinate their transmission. More specifically, our aim here is to design a practical, low-complexity and low-power consumption solution based on a realistic EE scheduling criterion, which takes into account the time dependence of the scheduling process. Numerical results indicate that our scheme reduces both the computational complexity (by a factor of at least 25) and transmit power (by at least 30%) while achieving similar EE performance than existing schemes, in a typical cellular environment. Moreover, they confirm the benefit of BS coordination for power and energy consumption reduction.