A Game Theoretical Resource Allocation for Relay-Assisted Device-to-Device Communication Networks

Device-to-Device (D2D) communications in LTE-Advanced networks allow user equipments (UEs) to communicate directly with each other without using uplink and downlink resources via base stations of the cellular networks. This results in a major improvement in term of spectrum utilization and enabling high transmission rates for D2D pairs. However, multiple D2D pairs communicate using the same channels can cause the interference problem for both the cellular devices and D2D pairs. Consequently, D2D pairs must properly control their transmission power. With the limited transmission power and interference problem, D2D pairs can only communicate within a limited area. To increase the communication range between D2D pairs, we focus on relay-assisted D2D communications networks. Particularly, a D2D pair including one transmitter and one receiver can transmit data via a relay device. In this paper, we propose a bargaining game approach for resource allocation (i.e., transmission power) in the relay-assisted D2D communication networks. The objective of each D2D pair is to bargain with each other in order to ensure proportional fairness and maximize the overall utility while satisfying the interference constraints. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated through simulations.