Distributed Channel Access, Relay Selection and Time Assignment for QoE-Aware Relay Networks

In this paper, we tackle the comprehensive problem jointing channel access, relay selection, and available time assignment for distributed relay networks which includes multiple source nodes and relay nodes. Driven by various communication requirements, source nodes search for relay nodes to improve the quality of transmission. Due to the interaction relationship, source nodes have to compete for channels and time resource of relay nodes with other source devices. To promote the satisfaction performance among source nodes, we divide the optimization problems of channel access and relay selection into two sub-problems, respectively. Then the distributed hierarchical game models are constructed, in which the problem of channel access is modeled as a congestion game model, and relay selection jointing time assignment is modeled as a matching model with dynamic quotas. Combining two game models, a distributed hierarchical scheme is designed, which is shown to reach a stable result and the properties are studied. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed distributed QoE-aware method has obvious performance improvement in terms of satisfaction, fairness, and convergence.