A Nash stable cross-layer coalition formation game for device-to-device communications

Device-to-Device (D2D) communications is a key aspect of future 5G cellular networks, as it can help improve spectral efficiency, system capacity, resource utilization, and quality-of-service (QoS), for the overall network. In this paper, a dynamic cross-layer leave-and-join based coalition formation game with non-transferable utility (NTU) is proposed. Our proposed game jointly optimizes mode selection (at the network layer), and resource allocation from the cell and cellular user/s, including power control (at the physical layer), in a distributed wireless network with D2D communications. Moreover, we aim to maximize channel rate and minimize transmit power for both cellular users and D2D pairs, while selecting optimal transmission mode for all D2D pairs. The coalition partition of the proposed game converges to a Nash stable outcome, which is socially efficient. The simulation results illustrate that once a Nash stable coalition partition is achieved, then optimal transmit power and channel rate are achieved for all D2D pairs and cellular users.