Hierarchical Cooperation for Operator-Controlled Device-to-Device Communications: A Layered Coalitional Game Approach

Device-to-Device (D2D) communications, which allow direct communication among mobile devices, have been proposed as an enabler of local services in 3GPP LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) cellular networks. This work investigates a hierarchical LTE-A network framework consisting of multiple D2D operators at the upper layer and a group of devices at the lower layer. We propose a cooperative model that allows the operators to improve their utility in terms of revenue by sharing their devices, and the devices to improve their payoff in terms of end-to-end throughput by collaboratively performing multi-path routing. To help understanding the interaction among operators and devices, we present a game-theoretic framework to model the cooperation behavior, and further, we propose a layered coalitional game (LCG) to address the decision making problems among them. Specifically, the cooperation of operators is modeled as an overlapping coalition formation game (CFG) in a partition form, in which operators should form a stable coalitional structure. Moreover, the cooperation of devices is modeled as a coalitional graphical game (CGG), in which devices establish links among each other to form a stable network structure for multi-path routing.We adopt the extended recursive core, and Nash network, as the stability concept for the proposed CFG and CGG, respectively. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed LCG yields notable gains compared to both the non-cooperative case and a LCG variant and achieves good convergence speed.Comment: IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference 201

Energy Harvesting Wireless Communications: A Review of Recent Advances

This article summarizes recent contributions in the broad area of energy harvesting wireless communications. In particular, we provide the current state of the art for wireless networks composed of energy harvesting nodes, starting from the information-theoretic performance limits to transmission scheduling policies and resource allocation, medium access and networking issues. The emerging related area of energy transfer for self-sustaining energy harvesting wireless networks is considered in detail covering both energy cooperation aspects and simultaneous energy and information transfer. Various potential models with energy harvesting nodes at different network scales are reviewed as well as models for energy consumption at the nodes.Comment: To appear in the IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications (Special Issue: Wireless Communications Powered by Energy Harvesting and Wireless Energy Transfer

A Micro-Payment Scheme Encouraging Collaboration in Multi-Hop Cellular Networks

We propose a micro-payment scheme for multi-hop cellular networks that encourages collaboration in packet forwarding by letting users benefit from relaying others` packets. At the same time as proposing mechanisms for detecting and rewarding collaboration, we introduce appropriate mechanisms for detecting and punishing various forms of abuse. We show that the resulting scheme -- which is exceptionally light-weight -- makes collaboration rational and cheating undesirable