This paper presents a detailed study of uplink scheduling in narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) networks. As NB-IoT devices need a long battery lifetime, we aim to maximize energy efficiency while satisfying the main requirements for NB-IoT devices. Also, as the NB-IoT scheduling problem is divided into link adaptation problem and resource allocation problem, this paper investigates the correlation between these two problems. Accordingly, we propose two scheduling schemes: the joint scheduling scheme, where the two problems are combined as one optimization problem, and the successive scheduling scheme that manages each problem separately but successively. Each scheme aims to maximize energy efficiency while achieving reliable transmission, satisfying delay requirements, and guaranteeing resource allocation specifications. Also, we investigate the impact of the selected devices to be served on the total energy efficiency. Accordingly, we propose two device selection techniques to maximize the total energy efficiency. The first technique exhaustively searches for the optimal devices, while the second sorts the devices based on a proposed priority score. The simulation results compare the successive and the joint scheduling schemes. The results show that the joint scheme outperforms the successive scheme in terms of energy efficiency and the number of served devices but with higher complexity. Also, the results highlight the impact of each proposed selection technique on the scheduling schemes' performance.
Keywords: NB-IoT; energy efficiency; link adaptation; resource allocation; scheduling.