Hybrid Multiband and Subband Scheduling in Multi-User Superposition Transmission

A method, in a radio access network node of a wireless communication network, the method comprising:

• determining a plurality of user equipment (UE) candidate sets for Multi-User Superposition Transmission (MUST) scheduling in a band comprising a plurality of subbands, wherein each UE candidate set comprises a first UE in a near MUST position and a second UE in a far MUST position;
• ordering the plurality of UE candidate sets according to a scheduling performance metric for each UE candidate set, wherein each scheduling performance metric is evaluated with respect to the entire band;
• resolving MUST pairing conflicts by excluding, from the plurality of UE candidate sets, any UE candidate set that includes a UE that (a) is also present in a UE candidate set having a better scheduling performance metric and (b) has an inconsistent MUST position for interference cancellation with respect to the UE candidate set having the better scheduling performance metric, to obtain a reduced set of UE candidate sets;
• and
• performing subband scheduling on each subband of the plurality of subbands, using either MUST scheduling or Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA) transmission scheduling, wherein the reduced set of UE candidate sets is used for MUST scheduling.

A radio access network node of a wireless communication network, comprising:

• a transceiver circuit configured to send and receive wireless signals;
• and
• a processing circuit operatively connected to the transceiver circuit and configured to:
• determine a plurality of user equipment (UE) candidate sets for Multi-User Superposition Transmission (MUST) scheduling in a band comprising a plurality of subbands, wherein each UE candidate set comprises a first UE in a near MUST position and a second UE in a far MUST position;
• order the plurality of UE candidate sets according to a scheduling performance metric for each UE candidate set, wherein each scheduling performance metric is evaluated with respect to the entire band;
• resolve MUST pairing conflicts by excluding, from the plurality of UE candidate sets, any UE candidate set that includes a UE that (a) is also present in a UE candidate set having a better scheduling performance metric and (b) has an inconsistent MUST position for interference cancellation with respect to the UE candidate set having the better scheduling performance metric, to obtain a reduced set of UE candidate sets;
• and
• perform subband scheduling on each subband of the plurality of subbands, using either MUST scheduling or Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA) transmission scheduling, wherein the reduced set of UE candidate sets is used for MUST scheduling.