EnergySlot: A Lightweight Scheduler for QoS and Energy Efficiency in 5G Networks

Abstract

In the fifth generation (5G) and beyond networks, packet scheduling plays a critical role to fulfil the requirement of quality-of-service (QoS) while minimizing energy consumption. However, existing schedulers are struggling to balance between delay-sensitive traffic, energy efficiency, and fairness, especially in heterogeneous environments that have mixed traffic classes. This paper proposes EnergySlot, a lightweight energy-aware scheduler based on fixed slot partitioning between high-priority traffic and standard-priority. The method assigns a specified percentage of the frame to high-priority packets, to ensure it will be serviced, while reserving the remainder for standard priority traffic to prevent starvation and improve fairness. Unlike traditional approaches that focus exclusively on either strict prioritization or energy minimization, EnergySlot introduces a balanced framework. Simulation results show that EnergySlot reduces deadline violations by 57% compared to first-come-first served (FCFS) and EnergyOnly, achieves QoS levels within 5% of strict-priority scheduling, and consumes approximately 41% less energy than PriorityOnly. Additionally, it ensures 50% coverage for standard-priority traffic, which in turn significantly outper forms methods that neglect lower-priority users. These results confirm that EnergySlot provides a robust trade-off between delay, fairness, and energy consumption that makes it well-suited for real-time scheduling in heterogeneous 5G environments.

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