Preallocation-Based Combinatorial Auction for Efficient Fair Channel Assignments in Multi-Connectivity Networks

We consider a general multi-connectivity framework, intended for ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC) services, and propose a novel, preallocation-based combinatorial auction approach for the efficient allocation of channels. We compare the performance of the proposed method with several other state-of-the-art and alternative channel-allocation algorithms. The two proposed performance metrics are the capacity-based and the utility-based context. In the first case, every unit of additional capacity is regarded as beneficial for any tenant, independent of the already allocated quantity, and the main measure is the total throughput of the system. In the second case, we assume a minimal and maximal required capacity value for each tenant, and consider the implied utility values accordingly. In addition to the total system performance, we also analyze fairness and computational requirements in both contexts. We conclude that at the cost of higher but still plausible computational time, the fairness-enhanced version of the proposed preallocation based combinatorial auction algorithm outperforms every other considered method when one considers total system performance and fairness simultaneously, and performs especially well in the utility context. Therefore, the proposed algorithm may be regarded as candidate scheme for URLLC channel allocation problems, where minimal and maximal capacity requirements have to be considered.