Energy-Efficient Resource Sharing for Mobile Device-to-Device Multimedia Communications

Device-to-device (D2D) communications bring significant benefits to mobile multimedia services in local areas. However, these potential advantages hinge on intelligent resource sharing between potential D2D pairs and cellular users. In this paper, we study the problem of energy-efficient uplink resource sharing over mobile D2D multimedia communications underlaying cellular networks with multiple potential D2D pairs and cellular users. We first construct a novel analytical model of energy efficiency for different sharing modes, which takes into account quality-of-service (QoS) requirements and the spectrum utilization of each user. Then, we formulate the energy-efficient resource sharing problem as a nontransferable coalition formation game, with the characteristic function that accounts for the gains in terms of energy efficiency and the costs in terms of mutual interference. Moreover, we develop a distributed coalition formation algorithm based on the merge-and-split rule and the Pareto order. The distributed solution is characterized through novel stability notions and can be adapted to user mobility. From it, we obtain the energy-efficient sharing strategy on joint mode selection, uplink reusing allocation, and power management. Extensive simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed game model and algorithm.