Optimal Rate and Distance Based Bandwidth Slicing in UAV Assisted 5G Networks

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are expected to be an important component for supporting high data rate transmissions in network slice enabled 5G networks. UAVs provide the opportunity to realize the concept of aerial base stations which can help in boosting coverage, spectral efficiency, and overall quality of experience of users. Network slicing logically divides the network resources including bandwidth, and provides diversified service requirements for different application scenarios and enhances network performance. However, slicing and allocation of available bandwidth to various users act as a challenge in achieving desired network performance. Additionally, energy constraints leads to limited hover time at UAVs which introduces further challenges in serving users' requests. In this work, we propose optimal rate and distance based algorithms which allocate bandwidth slices to users with the objectives of minimizing the hover time and maximizing the number of users which are served, while considering limitations pertaining to available bandwidth, hover time of UAVs, and quality of service to the users. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithms result in significant improvement over state-of-the art bandwidth allocation techniques.