Stability of flow-level scheduling with Markovian time-varying channels

Abstract

We consider the flow-level scheduling in wireless networks. The time is slotted and in each time slot the base station selects flows/users to serve. There are multi-class users and channel conditions vary over time. The channel state for each class user is assumed to be modeled as a finite state Markov chain. Using the fluid limit approach, we find the necessary and sufficient conditions for the stability of best rate (BR) scheduling policies. As a result, we show that any BR policy is maximally stable. Our result generalizes the result of Ayesta et al. (in press) [13] and solves the conjecture of jack (2011) [16]. We introduce a correlated channel state model and investigate the stability condition for BR policy in this model. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.