Patent ID: 7660244

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling admission of users to a communication system, the apparatus comprising: a first scheduler configured to manage access to network resources for users already admitted to the system; and an admission control module coupled to the first scheduler, the admission control module comprising a second scheduler which emulates operation of the first scheduler, under an operating scenario involving admission of at least one additional user to the system, in order to generate at least one performance metric which is used to make an admission control decision regarding admission of the at least one additional user to the system; wherein the admission control decision is based on whether the system can support quality-of-service requirements of the at least one additional user without violating any quality-of-service requirements of the users already admitted to the system; wherein the quality-of-service requirements for one or more of K admitted users are specified in terms of at least one of a minimum average throughput R min per user and a maximum allowed frame error rate F max per user, where K is a positive integer; wherein the admission control module receives as inputs R i (K) (t), for i=1, . . . , K, where R i (K) (t) denotes the average throughput of admitted user i before a new user K+1 is admitted to the system, and where for all i=1, . . . , K, R i (K) (t)≧R min ; wherein the second scheduler emulates the operation of the first scheduler as applied to a system with K+1 users, and the performance metric is generated as R i (K+1) (t+Δ), for i+1, . . . , K+1, where R i (K+1) (t+Δ) denotes the average throughput of user i in the system with K+1 users at time t+Δ, and where Δ denotes a convergence time of the system with K+1 users; and wherein the admission control decision comprises a decision to admit the new user K+1 to the system if the following condition is satisfied for all users i=1, . . . , K+1: R i (K+1) ( t +Δ)≧(1+δ) R min , where δ is a variable margin parameter.