Resource Scheduling for User-Centric Cell-Free Network with Computing-Constrained Access Points

To meet future ultra-low latency and extensive computing requirements, resource-constrained users should utilize ubiquitously available computing resources at the network edge. User-centric cell-free networks can effectively utilize the resources of multiple access points (APs) to serve users. However, the computing resources of a single AP are often limited due to deployment environment or cost, which makes the resource allocation problem more challenging. In this paper, we propose a parallel offloading scheme with limited AP computing resources under user-centric cell-free networks. Maximize the total users’ uplink rate and minimum delay margin by optimizing the users’ uplink transmission power and task allocation ratio. And we solve the non-convex optimization problem based on fractional programming (FP). Simulation results show that jointly scheduling the computing and communication resources of multiple APs can effectively alleviate problems such as task offloading failure caused by limited computing resources of a single AP.