Optimal Transport Theory for Cell Association in UAV-Enabled Cellular Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a delay-optimized cell association framework for UAV-enabled cellular networks using optimal transport theory, significantly reducing network delay through analytical and simulation validation.

Contribution

It applies optimal transport theory to characterize and solve the cell association problem in UAV networks, a novel approach in this context.

Findings

Substantial delay reduction demonstrated in simulations

Existence and characterization of optimal cell association solutions

Framework applicable to arbitrary user distributions

Abstract

In this paper, a novel framework for delay-optimal cell association in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled cellular networks is proposed. In particular, to minimize the average network delay under any arbitrary spatial distribution of the ground users, the optimal cell partitions of UAVs and terrestrial base stations (BSs) are determined. To this end, using the powerful mathematical tools of optimal transport theory, the existence of the solution to the optimal cell association problem is proved and the solution space is completely characterized. The analytical and simulation results show that the proposed approach yields substantial improvements of the average network delay.