Energy-efficient power optimization with Pareto improvement in two-tier femtocell networks

In two-tier femtocell networks, where a central macrocell underlaid with femtocells, femtocells may cause serious interference and consume large amounts of energy for its large-scale application. To solve the problem this paper presents an energy-efficient power optimization for two-tier femtocell networks in the analytical setting of a game theoretic framework, where both circuit and transmission power have been considered. Notice that the Nash equilibrium of the game is not efficient. We introduce pricing of interference, so as to obtain Pareto improvement of the non-cooperative power control game. In order to protect cellular user from severe cross-tier interference and guarantee that cellular user can obtain its Signal-to-Interference-Plus-Noise Ratio (SINR) target, we propose an algorithm which reduces transmit powers of the strongest femtocell interferers. According to simulation results, pricing can improve user utilities significantly.