Resource Allocation and Basestation Placement in Cellular Networks with Wireless Powered UAVs

In this paper, we focus on a downlink cellular network, where multiple UAVs serve as aerial basestations to provide wireless connectivity to ground users through frequency division multi-access (FDMA) scheme. The UAVs are exclusively powered by a wireless charging station located on the ground following save-then-transmit protocol. In such a cellular network joint optimization for user association, resource allocation and basesation placement is investigated to maximize the downlink sum rate. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer optimization problem and is thus challenging to solve. We propose an efficient solution based on alternate optimization by iteratively solving one of the three subproblems at a time and an algorithm based on penalty method and successive convex optimization to binarize the association indicators. Numerical result shows that the downlink sum rate cannot be always enhanced by deploying more UAVs due to non-negligible tradeoff between energy/communication sources and co-channel interference.