Scheduling in Wireless Networks with Spatial Reuse of Spectrum as Restless Bandits

TL;DR

This paper introduces Whittle index-based scheduling policies for wireless networks with spatial spectrum reuse, aiming to reduce energy and delay, and demonstrates their superior performance over traditional algorithms through extensive simulations.

Contribution

It applies the Whittle index theory to wireless network scheduling with spatial reuse, proposing two novel policies based on interference graph modeling.

Findings

Whittle index policies outperform Slotted ALOHA and maximum weight scheduling.

The policies effectively balance energy consumption and delay.

Simulation results show significant improvements in packet delivery and cost metrics.

Abstract

We study the problem of scheduling packet transmissions with the aim of minimizing the energy consumption and data transmission delay of users in a wireless network in which spatial reuse of spectrum is employed. We approach this problem using the theory of Whittle index for cost minimizing restless bandits, which has been used to effectively solve problems in a variety of applications. We design two Whittle index based policies the first by treating the graph representing the network as a clique and the second based on interference constraints derived from the original graph. We evaluate the performance of these two policies via extensive simulations, in terms of average cost and packets dropped, and show that they outperform the well-known Slotted ALOHA and maximum weight scheduling algorithms.