Centralized scheduling with sum-rate optimization in flexible half-duplex networks

In this paper, we focus on maximization of the instantaneous sum-rate in flexible half-duplex networks, where nodes have the flexibility to choose to either transmit, receive or be silent in a given time slot. Since the corresponding optimization problem is NP-hard, we design low-cost algorithms that give sub-optimal solutions with good performance. We first consider two existing approximation techniques to simplify the sum-rate optimization problem: arithmetic-geometric means inequality and another utilising the tight lower bound approximation. We then propose a novel pattern search algorithm that performs close to exhaustive search but with significantly lower complexity. Comparing the performance of the proposed algorithm with respect to existing resource allocation techniques, we observe that our proposed algorithm provides significant sum-rate gains.