Joint Interference Mitigation and Power Allocation for Multi-Cell LTE Networks: A Non-Cooperative Game Approach

We propose a non-cooperative game-theoretic power allocation (NGPA) scheme for interference mitigation in long term evolution (LTE) uplink in this paper. We first set up the interference model employing conventional soft frequency reuse (SFR) scheme for inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) in a nineteen-cell LTE network. Since each user may selfishly maximize its own performance in power allocation, we design a utility function that considers both quality of service (QoS) satisfaction and energy consumption. We then investigate the existence of Nash equilibrium and derive a sufficient condition to assure its uniqueness. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme improves throughput and coverage performances compared with conventional SFR schemes. Moreover, this scheme only requires limited signaling overhead among cells, which can be readily implemented in a distributed manner for practical systems.