UAV-assisted wireless powered Internet of Things: Joint trajectory optimization and resource allocation

Abstract

Due to affordable price, high mobility and flexible maneuverability, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-assisted communication can play an important role in the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT) in emergency. Since UAV network performance is highly dependent on UAV deployment location, trajectory design becomes the research hotspot in UAV-assisted communication. To this end, a UAV-assisted multicarrier wireless powered communication model is proposed for IoT scenarios in this paper. Specifically, as an aerial base station, the UAV transmits Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) signals to IoT nodes, while IoT nodes decode information and harvest energy from the signals. Afterwards, IoT nodes transmit information to the UAV by using the harvested energy. A joint UAV trajectory optimization and resource allocation scheme based on OFDM is proposed. The aim is to maximize the minimum achievable rate in the uplink among all IoT nodes by jointly optimizing UAV trajectory, subcarrier, power and subslot allocation, subject to the achievable sum rate of all IoT nodes in the downlink. Due to the non-convexity and complexity of the formulated optimization problem, an alternative iteration algorithm is proposed to deal with the problem. Simulation results that the proposed algorithm can optimize the UAV trajectory and adapt to the node movement. Compared with conventional resource allocation schemes, the proposed scheme not only significantly enhances the minimum achievable rate, but also works well for two flight modes.