A Survey on LTE/LTE-A Radio Resource Allocation Techniques for Machine-to-Machine Communication for B5G Networks

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication refers to autonomous communication among devices that aims for a massive number of connected devices. M2M communication can support ubiquitous communication and full mechanical automation, and it will change everything from industry to ourselves. Recent developments in communication technology make Long Term Evolution (LTE)/Long Term Evolution-Advance (LTE-A) a promising technology for supporting M2M communication. LTE can support the diverse characteristic of M2M communication due to its IP connectivity, coverage area, and scalability. Therefore, the LTE schedulers should satisfy the need for M2M communication. Motivated by these facts, in this paper, we present a survey on the classification of LTE / LTE-A scheduling methodologies from the perspective of M2M communication. We classify the schedulers based on their objectives, such as energy efficiency, spectrum efficiency, group-based, and Quality-of-Service (QoS) support for Machine Type Communication Devices (MTCDs). We also highlight the scope of future research direction for the scheduling work.