Priority‐based resource allocation in wireless powered UAV‐assisted networks

Abstract

Abstract Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be deployed to combine terrestrial and aerial networks to provide flexible connectivity to a large number of devices in three‐dimensional (3D) space. Powering wireless devices through energy harvesting and wireless power transfer have been investigated to provide uninterrupted operations. Resource allocation is critical to improving the overall performance of the network. This paper focusses on a downlink network in which UAVs serve as base stations to provide connectivity to ground users. A priority‐based charging of UAVs from the ground charging stations needs to be efficiently designed for the sustainable operation of the overall network. A binary linear integer programming (BLIP) problem is formulated to minimise the charging cost and maximise the number of UAVs that can be charged by charging stations. First, the BLIP is transformed into a quadratic programming problem to solve it in polynomial time. A sequential quadratic programming algorithm is developed to solve the optimisation problem. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed work compared to existing solutions.