Distributed resource allocation for device-to-device communications underlaying cellular networks

In this paper, we investigate the resource sharing problem to optimize the system performance in device-to-device (D2D) communications underlaying cellular networks from a distributed and cooperative perspective. Specifically, we formulate a coalitional game with transferable utility, in which each user intends to maximize its own utility and has the incentive to cooperate with other users to form a strengthened user group that can increase the opportunity to win its preferred spectrum resources. Furthermore, we propose a distributed merge-and-split based coalition formation algorithm based on a new defined Max-Coalition order to effectively process the resource allocation problem. Simulation results confirm that, with much lower computational complexity, the proposed scheme achieves an approaching performance in terms of network sum-rate compared with the centralized optimal resource allocation scheme obtained via exhaustive search.