A game theoretic link scheduler for wireless networks with heterogeneous energy sources

This paper considers link scheduling in a wireless network comprising of two types of nodes: (i) hybrid access points (HAPs) that harvest solar energy, and (ii) devices that harvest radio frequency (RF) energy whenever HAPs transmit. Our aim is to derive the shortest possible link schedule that determines the transmission time of inter-HAPs links, and uplinks from devices to HAPs. We first outline a mixed integer linear program (MILP), which can be run by a central node to determine the optimal schedule and transmit power of HAPs and devices. We then outline a game theory based protocol called Distributed Schedule Minimization Protocol (DSMP) that is run by HAPs and devices. Advantageously, it does not require causal energy arrivals and channel gains information. Our results show that DSMP produces schedule lengths that are at most 1.99× longer than the schedule computed by MILP.