Joint user scheduling and transmit direction selection in 5G TDD dense small cell networks

This paper proposes a joint user scheduling and transmit direction selection procedure for dynamic TDD in 5G dense small cell networks, where the transmit direction (i.e. downlink (DL) or uplink (UL)) selected per small cell is dynamically optimized together with the user scheduling at every frame. We focus on the maximization of a general utility function that takes into account the DL/UL traffic asymmetries of each user and the interference conditions in the network. After relaxation of the integer variables that subsume the user scheduling and transmit direction selection, the problem is decomposed and efficiently solved in parallel at every frame. Simulation results show significant gains in DL and UL average rates for different traffic asymmetries, network densities, and user densities as compared to existing schemes for dynamic TDD.