Adaptive Multiuser Scheduling for Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer in a Multicell Environment

Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is a promising technique to transmit information and harvest energy at the same time. In this paper, we investigate multiuser scheduling criteria in a multiuser SWIPT system taking into account co-channel interference in a multicell environment, where each transmitter operate independently. We propose an α-adaptive scheduling scheme, which is able to adjust a scheduling criterion between maximizing achievable rate and maximizing harvested energy of the scheduled device by adjusting α factor. Employing a power splitting receiver, we derive closed-form analytical results including cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the harvested energy, CDF of the achievable rate, average harvested energy, and average achievable rate. We also investigate the effect of adjustable α factor in the proposed scheduling scheme and multiuser diversity in terms of the CDF of the harvested energy, the CDF of the achievable rate, and rate-energy tradeoff, compared with two conventional scheduling schemes: random scheduling and max-SNR scheduling. Our analytical results provide insightful information for designing multiuser scheduling criteria considering co-channel interference in the SWIPT systems.