Price-Based Resource Allocation for Spectrum-Sharing Femtocell Networks: A Stackelberg Game Approach

This paper investigates the price-based resource allocation strategies for the uplink transmission of a spectrum-sharing femtocell network, in which a central macrocell is underlaid with distributed femtocells, all operating over the same frequency band as the macrocell. Assuming that the macrocell base station (MBS) protects itself by pricing the interference from the femtocell users, a Stackelberg game is formulated to study the joint utility maximization of the macrocell and the femtocells subject to a maximum tolerable interference power constraint at the MBS. Especially, two practical femtocell channel models: sparsely deployed scenario for rural areas and densely deployed scenario for urban areas, are investigated. For each scenario, two pricing schemes: uniform pricing and non-uniform pricing, are proposed. Then, the Stackelberg equilibriums for these proposed games are studied, and an effective distributed interference price bargaining algorithm with guaranteed convergence is proposed for the uniform-pricing case. Finally, numerical examples are presented to verify the proposed studies. It is shown that the proposed algorithms are effective in resource allocation and macrocell protection requiring minimal network overhead for spectrum-sharing-based two-tier femtocell networks.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures, Submitted to JSA

Non-cooperative Feedback Rate Control Game for Channel State Information in Wireless Networks

It has been well recognized that channel state information (CSI) feedback is of great importance for dowlink transmissions of closed-loop wireless networks. However, the existing work typically researched the CSI feedback problem for each individual mobile station (MS), and thus, cannot efficiently model the interactions among self-interested mobile users in the network level. To this end, in this paper, we propose an alternative approach to investigate the CSI feedback rate control problem in the analytical setting of a game theoretic framework, in which a multiple-antenna base station (BS) communicates with a number of co-channel MSs through linear precoder. Specifically, we first present a non-cooperative feedback-rate control game (NFC), in which each MS selects the feedback rate to maximize its performance in a distributed way. To improve efficiency from a social optimum point of view, we then introduce pricing, called the non-cooperative feedback-rate control game with price (NFCP). The game utility is defined as the performance gain by CSI feedback minus the price as a linear function of the CSI feedback rate. The existence of the Nash equilibrium of such games is investigated, and two types of feedback protocols (FDMA and CSMA) are studied. Simulation results show that by adjusting the pricing factor, the distributed NFCP game results in close optimal performance compared with that of the centralized scheme.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures; IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, special issue on Game Theory in Wireless Communications, 201

Introducing Hierarchy in Energy Games

In this work we introduce hierarchy in wireless networks that can be modeled by a decentralized multiple access channel and for which energy-efficiency is the main performance index. In these networks users are free to choose their power control strategy to selfishly maximize their energy-efficiency. Specifically, we introduce hierarchy in two different ways: 1. Assuming single-user decoding at the receiver, we investigate a Stackelberg formulation of the game where one user is the leader whereas the other users are assumed to be able to react to the leader's decisions; 2. Assuming neither leader nor followers among the users, we introduce hierarchy by assuming successive interference cancellation at the receiver. It is shown that introducing a certain degree of hierarchy in non-cooperative power control games not only improves the individual energy efficiency of all the users but can also be a way of insuring the existence of a non-saturated equilibrium and reaching a desired trade-off between the global network performance at the equilibrium and the requested amount of signaling. In this respect, the way of measuring the global performance of an energy-efficient network is shown to be a critical issue.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Trans. on Wireless Communication

A Comprehensive Survey of Potential Game Approaches to Wireless Networks

Potential games form a class of non-cooperative games where unilateral improvement dynamics are guaranteed to converge in many practical cases. The potential game approach has been applied to a wide range of wireless network problems, particularly to a variety of channel assignment problems. In this paper, the properties of potential games are introduced, and games in wireless networks that have been proven to be potential games are comprehensively discussed.Comment: 44 pages, 6 figures, to appear in IEICE Transactions on Communications, vol. E98-B, no. 9, Sept. 201

NOMA based resource allocation and mobility enhancement framework for IoT in next generation cellular networks

With the unprecedented technological advances witnessed in the last two decades, more devices are connected to the internet, forming what is called internet of things (IoT). IoT devices with heterogeneous characteristics and quality of experience (QoE) requirements may engage in dynamic spectrum market due to scarcity of radio resources. We propose a framework to efficiently quantify and supply radio resources to the IoT devices by developing intelligent systems. The primary goal of the paper is to study the characteristics of the next generation of cellular networks with non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) to enable connectivity to clustered IoT devices. First, we demonstrate how the distribution and QoE requirements of IoT devices impact the required number of radio resources in real time. Second, we prove that using an extended auction algorithm by implementing a series of complementary functions, enhance the radio resource utilization efficiency. The results show substantial reduction in the number of sub-carriers required when compared to conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) and the intelligent clustering is scalable and adaptable to the cellular environment. Ability to move spectrum usages from one cluster to other clusters after borrowing when a cluster has less user or move out of the boundary is another soft feature that contributes to the reported radio resource utilization efficiency. Moreover, the proposed framework provides IoT service providers cost estimation to control their spectrum acquisition to achieve required quality of service (QoS) with guaranteed bit rate (GBR) and non-guaranteed bit rate (Non-GBR)

Multilevel Pricing Schemes in a Deregulated Wireless Network Market

Typically the cost of a product, a good or a service has many components. Those components come from different complex steps in the supply chain of the product from sourcing to distribution. This economic point of view also takes place in the determination of goods and services in wireless networks. Indeed, before transmitting customer data, a network operator has to lease some frequency range from a spectrum owner and also has to establish agreements with electricity suppliers. The goal of this paper is to compare two pricing schemes, namely a power-based and a flat rate, and give a possible explanation why flat rate pricing schemes are more common than power based pricing ones in a deregulated wireless market. We suggest a hierarchical game-theoretical model of a three level supply chain: the end users, the service provider and the spectrum owner. The end users intend to transmit data on a wireless network. The amount of traffic sent by the end users depends on the available frequency bandwidth as well as the price they have to pay for their transmission. A natural question arises for the service provider: how to design an efficient pricing scheme in order to maximize his profit. Moreover he has to take into account the lease charge he has to pay to the spectrum owner and how many frequency bandwidth to rent. The spectrum owner itself also looks for maximizing its profit and has to determine the lease price to the service provider. The equilibrium at each level of our supply chain model are established and several properties are investigated. In particular, in the case of a power-based pricing scheme, the service provider and the spectrum owner tend to share the gross provider profit. Whereas, considering the flat rate pricing scheme, if the end users are going to exploit the network intensively, then the tariffs of the suppliers (spectrum owner and service provider) explode.Comment: This is the last draft version of the paper. Revised version of the paper accepted by ValueTools 2013 can be found in Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools (ValueTools '13), December 10-12, 2013, Turin, Ital