Stackelberg game-based energy-efficient resource allocation for 5G cellular networks

To obtain better bandwidth and performance, the fifth generation (5G) cellular network is proposed to implement new-generation cellular mobile communications for new applications such as the internet of things, big data, smart city and so on. However, due to multiple/dense cellular network structures and high data rate, the 5G cellular network holds high inter-cell interference (ICI) and lower energy efficiency. The soft frequency reuse (SFR) is introduced to reduce the inter-cell interference in multiple cellular networks (such as 5G cellular networks) with the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing in base stations. Then, we investigate the energy-efficient resource allocation problem in the 5G cellular network with SFR. To coordinate the ICI among adjacent cells, we introduce the interference pricing factor into the utility function. The energy-efficient resource allocation problem is described as a Stackelberg game model. Because the sub-carrier assignment in the optimization process is an integer program which is very hard to be solved, we make a relaxation for the integer variable in the model and propose an iteration algorithm to obtain the Stackelberg game equilibrium solution. Simulation results show that the proposed method is feasible and promising.