Co-Tier and Cross-Tier Spectrum Allocation Scheme Based on Interval Shapley and Banzhaf Values

Current evolution of 5G heterogeneous network (HetNet) leads to unprecedented traffic demands and user quality of service requirements. It is extremely challenging to meet these needs for future generation communications. Multi-flow carrier aggregation (MCA) is an emerging technique that is implemented to improve the capacity of cellular networks. In this paper, we present an effective spectrum allocation scheme for the HetNet platform under the MCA technology. For the joint co-tier and cross-tier collaborations in HetNets, we adopt the ideas of interval Shapley and Banzhaf values as solution concepts. To strike an appropriate performance balance while dynamically distributing the limited spectrum resource, our scheme is formulated as a coalition game model, and both interval values are applied for different type applications. Based on the main features of cooperative game theory, the proposed scheme takes various benefits in a rational way. Through extensive simulations, we compare the performance of the proposed scheme with existing state-of-the-art spectrum allocation protocols, and confirm the superiority of our coalitional game based approach. Finally, the conclusions are presented, and some research challenges are identified for the future study.