Wireless powered communication networks (WPCNs) will be a major enabler of massive machine type communications (MTCs), which is a major service domain for 5G and beyond systems. These MTC networks will be deployed by using low-power transceivers and a very limited set of transmission configurations. We investigate a novel minimum length scheduling problem for multi-cell full-duplex wireless powered communication networks to determine the optimal power control and scheduling for constant rate transmission model. The formulated optimization problem is combinatorial in nature and, thus, difficult to solve for the global optimum. As a solution strategy, first, we decompose the problem into the power control problem (PCP) and scheduling problem. For the PCP, we propose the optimal polynomial time algorithm based on the evaluation of Perron-Frobenius conditions. For the scheduling problem, we propose a heuristic algorithm that aims to maximize the number of concurrently transmitting users by maximizing the allowable interference on each user without violating the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) requirements. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate a 50% reduction in the schedule length by using the proposed algorithm in comparison to unscheduled concurrent transmissions.
Keywords: energy harvesting; full-duplex; multi-cell network; power control; scheduling; wireless powered communication networks.