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

TL;DR

This paper models and analyzes a price-based resource allocation strategy for spectrum-sharing femtocell networks using a Stackelberg game, proposing algorithms that effectively balance macrocell protection and femtocell utility in urban and rural scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Stackelberg game framework for uplink resource allocation in spectrum-sharing femtocells with practical pricing schemes and a distributed bargaining algorithm.

Findings

Effective resource allocation with minimal overhead

Successful protection of macrocell from interference

Convergence of the proposed bargaining algorithm

Abstract

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.