Game-theoretic Resource Allocation Methods for Device-to-Device (D2D) Communication

Device-to-device (D2D) communication underlaying cellular networks allows mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to use the licensed spectrum allocated to cellular services for direct peer-to-peer transmission. D2D communication can use either one-hop transmission (i.e., in D2D direct communication) or multi-hop cluster-based transmission (i.e., in D2D local area networks). The D2D devices can compete or cooperate with each other to reuse the radio resources in D2D networks. Therefore, resource allocation and access for D2D communication can be treated as games. The theories behind these games provide a variety of mathematical tools to effectively model and analyze the individual or group behaviors of D2D users. In addition, game models can provide distributed solutions to the resource allocation problems for D2D communication. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the applications of game-theoretic models to study the radio resource allocation issues in D2D communication. The article also outlines several key open research directions.Comment: Accepted. IEEE Wireless Comms Mag. 201

Cross-layer optimization for cooperative content distribution in multihop device-to-device networks

With the ubiquity of wireless network and the intelligentization of machines, Internet of Things (IoT) has come to people's horizon. Device-to-device (D2D), as one advanced technique to achieve the vision of IoT, supports a high speed peer-to-peer transmission without fixed infrastructure forwarding which can enable fast content distribution in local area. In this paper, we address the content distribution problem by multihop D2D communication with decentralized content providers locating in the networks. We consider a cross-layer multidimension optimization involving frequency, space, and time, to minimize the network average delay. Considering the multicast feature, we first formulate the problem as a coalitional game based on the payoffs of content requesters, and then, propose a time-varying coalition formation-based algorithm to spread the popular content within the shortest possible time. Simulation results show that the proposed approach can achieve a fast content distribution across the whole area, and the performance on network average delay is much better than other heuristic approaches

Coalition Formation Game for Cooperative Content Delivery in Network Coding Assisted D2D Communications

Device-to-device (D2D) communications have shown a huge potential in cellular offloading and become a potential technology in 5G and beyond. In D2D networks, the requested contents by user devices (UDs) can be delivered via D2D links, thus offloading the content providers (CPs). In this work, we address the problem of minimizing the delay of delivering content in a decentralized and partially D2D connected network using network coding (NC) and cooperation among the UDs. The proposed optimization framework considers UDs’ acquired and missing contents, their limited coverage zones, NC, and content’s erasure probability. As such, the completion time for delivering all missing contents to all UDs is minimized. The problem is modeled as a coalition game with cooperative-players wherein the payoff function is derived so that increasing individual payoff results in the desired cooperative behavior. Given the intractability of the formulation, the coalition game is relaxed to a coalition formation game (CFG). A distributed coalition formation algorithm relying on merge-and-split rules is developed for solving the relaxed problem at each transmission. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is validated through computer simulation against existing schemes

Controlled Matching Game for Resource Allocation and User Association in WLANs

In multi-rate IEEE 802.11 WLANs, the traditional user association based on the strongest received signal and the well known anomaly of the MAC protocol can lead to overloaded Access Points (APs), and poor or heterogeneous performance. Our goal is to propose an alternative game-theoretic approach for association. We model the joint resource allocation and user association as a matching game with complementarities and peer effects consisting of selfish players solely interested in their individual throughputs. Using recent game-theoretic results we first show that various resource sharing protocols actually fall in the scope of the set of stability-inducing resource allocation schemes. The game makes an extensive use of the Nash bargaining and some of its related properties that allow to control the incentives of the players. We show that the proposed mechanism can greatly improve the efficiency of 802.11 with heterogeneous nodes and reduce the negative impact of peer effects such as its MAC anomaly. The mechanism can be implemented as a virtual connectivity management layer to achieve efficient APs-user associations without modification of the MAC layer

Coalition Formation Game for Cooperative Content Delivery in Network Coding Assisted D2D Communications

Device-to-device (D2D) communications have shown a huge potential in cellular offloading and become a potential technology in 5G and beyond. In D2D networks, the requested contents by user devices (UDs) can be delivered via D2D links, thus offloading the content providers (CPs). In this work, we address the problem of minimizing the delay of delivering content in a decentralized and partially D2D connected network using network coding (NC) and cooperation among the UDs. The proposed optimization framework considers UDs’ acquired and missing contents, their limited coverage zones, NC, and content’s erasure probability. As such, the completion time for delivering all missing contents to all UDs is minimized. The problem is modeled as a coalition game with cooperative-players wherein the payoff function is derived so that increasing individual payoff results in the desired cooperative behavior. Given the intractability of the formulation, the coalition game is relaxed to a coalition formation game (CFG). A distributed coalition formation algorithm relying on merge-and-split rules is developed for solving the relaxed problem at each transmission. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is validated through computer simulation against existing schemes

Spectrum Leasing as an Incentive towards Uplink Macrocell and Femtocell Cooperation

The concept of femtocell access points underlaying existing communication infrastructure has recently emerged as a key technology that can significantly improve the coverage and performance of next-generation wireless networks. In this paper, we propose a framework for macrocell-femtocell cooperation under a closed access policy, in which a femtocell user may act as a relay for macrocell users. In return, each cooperative macrocell user grants the femtocell user a fraction of its superframe. We formulate a coalitional game with macrocell and femtocell users being the players, which can take individual and distributed decisions on whether to cooperate or not, while maximizing a utility function that captures the cooperative gains, in terms of throughput and delay.We show that the network can selforganize into a partition composed of disjoint coalitions which constitutes the recursive core of the game representing a key solution concept for coalition formation games in partition form. Simulation results show that the proposed coalition formation algorithm yields significant gains in terms of average rate per macrocell user, reaching up to 239%, relative to the non-cooperative case. Moreover, the proposed approach shows an improvement in terms of femtocell users' rate of up to 21% when compared to the traditional closed access policy.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figures, accepted at the IEEE JSAC on Femtocell Network

QoS-aware User Association and Transmission Scheduling for Millimeter-Wave Train-ground Communications

With the development of wireless communication, people have put forward higher requirements for train-ground communications in the high-speed railway (HSR) scenarios. With the help of mobile relays (MRs) installed on the roof of the train, the application of Millimeter-Wave (mm-wave) communication which has rich spectrum resources to the train-ground communication system can realize high data rate, so as to meet users' increasing demand for broad-band multimedia access. Also, full-duplex (FD) technology can theoretically double the spectral efficiency. In this paper, we formulate the user association and transmission scheduling problem in the mm-wave train-ground communication system with MR operating in the FD mode as a nonlinear programming problem. In order to maximize the system throughput and the number of users meeting quality of service (QoS) requirements, we propose an algorithm based on coalition game to solve the challenging NP-hard problem, and also prove the convergence and Nash-stable structure of the proposed algorithm. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that the proposed coalition game based algorithm can effectively improve the system throughput and meet the QoS requirements of as many users as possible, so that the communication system has a certain QoS awareness.Comment: 14 page

Review on Radio Resource Allocation Optimization in LTE/LTE-Advanced using Game Theory

Recently, there has been a growing trend toward ap-plying game theory (GT) to various engineering fields in order to solve optimization problems with different competing entities/con-tributors/players. Researches in the fourth generation (4G) wireless network field also exploited this advanced theory to overcome long term evolution (LTE) challenges such as resource allocation, which is one of the most important research topics. In fact, an efficient de-sign of resource allocation schemes is the key to higher performance. However, the standard does not specify the optimization approach to execute the radio resource management and therefore it was left open for studies. This paper presents a survey of the existing game theory based solution for 4G-LTE radio resource allocation problem and its optimization