UAV-enabled Wireless Powered Communication Networks: A Joint Scheduling and Trajectory Optimization Approach

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled wireless powered communication networks (WPCN) are promising technologies in Internet of Things (IoTs). However, energy-constrained devices and connectivity in complex environments are two major challenges for IoTs. We consider a UAV-enabled WPCN scenario that a UAV can connect with the ground IoT devices (IoTDs). To connect and fly faster, UAV needs to be scheduled reasonably and the corresponding trajectory should be optimized. Thus, we formulate a UAV scheduling and trajectory optimization problem (USTOP) to minimize the total time so that improving the charging and transmission efficiency. Since conventional methods are difficult to solve USTOP, we propose an improved simulated annealing (ISA) with the variable size changing mechanism, the conflict resolution mechanism and the hybrid evolution method to solve it. Simulation results verify the effectiveness and performance of ISA under different scales of the network, and the stability of the proposed algorithm is verified.