Large-Scale Centralized Scheduling of Short-Range Wireless Links

In 5G networks we expect femtocells, mmWave and D2D communications to take over the more typical long-range cellular architectures with pre-planned radio resources. However, as the connection length between the nodes become shorter, locating feasible, non-interfering combinations of the links becomes more and more difficult. In this paper a new approach to this problem is presented. In particular, through guided heuristic search, it is possible to locate non-interfering combinations of wireless connections in a highly effective manner. The approach enables operators to deploy centralized scheduling solutions for emerging technologies such as network-assisted WiFi-Direct and LTE Direct, and others, especially those which lack efficient medium arbitration mechanisms. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.