Minimum-Energy Power and Rate Control for Fair Scheduling in the Cellular Downlink under Flow Level Delay Constraint

In this paper, we study the energy-delay trade-off in the downlink of a proportional-fair cellular system with inter-cell interference and fading, while incorporating the efficiency characteristics of realistic amplifiers(PA). We study the potential for energy saving by lowering the transmission power level at different user locations in a cell at the cost of additional flow level delay. We identify the transmission power levels at different locations so that the energy consumption at the base station is minimized and the flow level delay is controlled. We formulate the energy minimization problem in a game theoretic framework and prove the convergence of the best response iteration algorithm. The energy saving potential is found to depend on the network load and the efficiency characteristics of the PAs. There is a significant potential for energy saving when the network operates under low to medium loads and efficient PAs are utilized. For example, with envelope tracking PA, around 90% of energy can be saved by introducing small additional flow level delay when the network load is less than 75%. Motivated by the fact that the network load keeps varying throughout the day, we take a daily traffic model and demonstrate the potential for energy saving by this scheme.