Game Theory Based Hybrid Access for Macrocell-Edge Users in a Macro-Femto Network

The extensive deployment of femtocells introduces co-channel interference to the macro cell-edge users (MCEUs), which degrades the throughput improvement of the total network. In this paper, we consider the scenario in which the femtocell base station (FBS) allows the hybrid access of MCEUs on the condition that the MCEUs rent the power resource from it. However, the FBS is power limited. If almost all of its power is used to serve the MCEUs and its original femtocell users (FUEs), when newly authoritized FUEs are switched on, there will be little power left to serve these newly authoritized FUEs. In this situation, the FBS can select one MCEU as a relay to coordinate its information transmission to the FUE. To reward the cooperation of the MCEUs, the FBS will agree to support the service of MCEUs without charging. Stackelberg game is used to find the optimal power and price value for this procedure. An MCEU relay selection criterion is proposed for the FBS. The optimal power that the MCEU can obtain from the FBS and the power that the MCEU can obtain from the FBS and the power that the MCEU can share with the FUEs are obtained. The simulation results show that the throughputs of both the FUEs and the MCEUs are improved.