We introduce Distance-Based Scheduling (DBS), a
new technique for user selection in downlink multi-user communications with extra-large (XL) antenna arrays. DBS categorizes
users according to their equivalent distance to the antenna array.
Such categorization effectively accounts for inter-user interference while largely reducing the computational burden. Results
show that (i) DBS achieves the same performance as the reference
zero-forcing beamforming scheme with a lower complexity; (ii)
a simplified version of DBS achieves a similar performance
when realistic spherical-wavefront (SW) propagation features are
considered; (iii) SW propagation brings additional degrees of
freedom, which allows for increasing the number of served users
