Multi-user scheduling schemes for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer

In this paper, the downlink multi-user scheduling problem is studied for a time-slotted system with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer. In particular, in each time slot, a single user is scheduled to receive information, while the remaining users opportunistically harvest the ambient radio frequency (RF) energy. We devise novel scheduling schemes in which the tradeoff between the users' ergodic capacities and their average amount of harvested energy can be controlled. To this end, two fair scheduling schemes used in information-only transfer systems are modified. First, proportionally fair maximum normalized signal-to-noise ratio (N-SNR) scheduling is modified by scheduling the user having the jth ascendingly ordered (rather than the maximum) N-SNR. We refer to this scheme as order-based N-SNR scheduling. Second, conventional equal-throughput (ET) fair scheduling is modified by scheduling the user having the minimum moving average throughput among the set of users whose N-SNR orders fall into a certain set of allowed orders Sa (rather than the set of all users). We refer to this scheme as order-based ET scheduling. The feasibility conditions required for the users to achieve ET with this scheme are also derived. It is shown that the smaller the selection order j for the order-based N-SNR scheme, and the lower the orders in Sa for the order-based ET scheme, the higher the average amount of energy harvested by the users at the expense of a reduction in their ergodic capacities. The performance of the considered scheduling schemes is analyzed for independent and non-identically distributed (i.n.d.) Ricean fading channels, and closed-form results for the special case of i.n.d. Rayleigh fading are provided.