Spatial Configuration of Agile Wireless Networks With Drone-BSs and User-in-the-loop

Agile networking can reduce over-engineering, costs, and energy waste. Toward that end, it is vital to exploit all degrees of freedom of wireless networks efficiently, so that the service quality is not sacrificed. In order to reap the benefits of flexible networking, we propose a spatial network configuration (SNC) scheme, which can result in efficient networking; both from the perspective of network capacity and profitability. First, the SNC utilizes the drone-base-stations (drone-BSs) to configure access points. Drone-BSs are shifting paradigms of heterogeneous wireless networks by providing radically flexible deployment opportunities. On the other hand, their limited endurance and potential high cost increase the importance of utilizing drone-BSs efficiently. Therefore, second, user mobility is exploited via user-in-the-loop (UIL), which aims at influencing users' mobility by offering incentives. The proposed uncoordinated SNC is a computationally efficient method, yet, it may be insufficient to exploit the synergy between the drone-BSs and UIL. Hence, we propose a joint SNC, which increases the performance gain along with the computational cost. Finally, the semi-joint SNC combines the benefits of the joint SNC with computational efficiency. The numerical results show that the semi-joint SNC is two orders of magnitude faster than the joint SNC, and a profit of more than 15% can be obtained compared to conventional systems.