  We consider the problem of scheduling packet transmissions in a wireless
network of users while minimizing the energy consumed and the transmission
delay. A challenge is that transmissions of users that are close to each other
mutually interfere, while users that are far apart can transmit simultaneously
without much interference. Each user has a queue of packets that are
transmitted on a single channel and mutually non interfering users reuse the
spectrum. Using the theory of Whittle index for cost minimizing restless
bandits, we design four index-based policies and compare their performance with
that of the well-known policies: Slotted ALOHA, maximum weight scheduling,
quadratic Lyapunov drift, Cella and Cesa Bianchi algorithm, and two Whittle
index based policies from a recently published paper. We make the code used to
perform our simulations publicly available, so that it can be used for future
work by the research community at large.
