Multi-Base Station Coordination for Semi-Persistent Scheduling in Industrial 5G Wireless Time-Sensitive Networks

In this paper, we design a 5G-compliant semi-persistent scheduling algorithm that guarantees determinism (i.e., bounded delay and zero jitter) over the wireless link for delay-constrained traffic. This is especially important for industrial remote control applications handling time-sensitive traffic. To this end, we adapt the window reservation mechanism for wired networks introduced in IEEE 802.1Qbv to also ensure determinism over 5G wireless links. Based on the statistical characterization of the radio channel, we develop a rigorous method to determine the number of time-frequency resources that must be reserved in each 5G subframe to accommodate all time-sensitive traffic traversing the wireless link. Numerical simulations are conducted in representative industrial scenarios, showing that neighboring base stations have to coordinate their transmissions to avoid interference and mitigate channel fading. Numerical results demonstrate that window design for time-sensitive traffic benefits from coordination in two key ways: by extending coverage and significantly increasing the number of time-critical flows that a 5G network can support in industrial deployments.