A Game-Theoretic Resource Allocation Approach for Intercell Device-to-Device Communications in Cellular Networks

Device-to-device (D2D) communication is a recently emerged disruptive technology for enhancing the performance of current cellular systems. To successfully implement D2D communications underlaying cellular networks, resource allocation to D2D links is a critical issue, which is far from trivial due to the mutual interference between D2D users and cellular users. Most of the existing resource allocation research for D2D communications has primarily focused on the intracell scenario while leaving the intercell settings not considered. In this paper, we investigate the resource allocation issue for intercell scenarios where a D2D link is located in the overlapping area of two neighboring cells. Furthermore, we present three intercell D2D scenarios regarding the resource allocation problem. To address the problem, we develop a repeated game model under these scenarios. Distinct from existing works, we characterize the communication infrastructure, namely, base stations, as players competing resource allocation quota from D2D demand, and we define the utility of each player as the payoff from both cellular and D2D communications using radio resources. We also propose a resource allocation algorithm and protocol based on the Nash equilibrium derivations. Numerical results indicate that the developed model not only significantly enhances the system performance, including sum rate and sum rate gain, but also shed lights on resource configurations for intercell D2D scenarios.