Price-based resource allocation for full duplex self-backhauled small cell networks

Heterogeneous cellular networks are a promising approach in achieving better quality of service and coverage. They are also a relief for the exponentially increasing data traffic demand. Small cell access points (SAPs) typically rely on out-ofband communication links for backhaul which can be wired or wireless. In this paper, we investigate the price-based resource allocation problem in a self-backhauled SAP. In our scenario, an imperfect full duplex SAP uses the same radio access spectrum for both access and backhaul links to forward the traffic of users from a base station to the user equipments (UEs). In our system model, the SAP charges each UE proportional to the amount of the power it uses to transmit to that UE. A Stackelberg game model is proposed to model and investigate the joint utility maximization problem of the SAP and UEs. We will assume an aggregate transmit power constraint in the SAP. In our game model, the SAP is leader and UEs are the followers. We formulate the utility maximization problems of both leader and followers as optimization problems. We prove that both sub-games are convex problems which ensures their tractability.We also propose a novel algorithm to obtain the Stackelberg equilibrium of the game. Numerical results validate our proposed priced based resource allocation scheme.