Co-Tier Uplink Power Control in Small Cell Networks by Stackelberg Game with Two-Way Pricing Mechanism

Due to the continuous evolving of mobile communication technologies, deploying small cells (SCs), also known as SC base stations (SBSs), is regarded as one of the feasible alternatives to provide better indoor signal quality to meet the ever-increasing demand for mobile broadband data in indoor environments. However, the co-tier uplink interference, i.e., interference between SBSs, increases when SBSs are densely deployed. Consequently, the sum-capacity of the small cell network (SCN) is deteriorated. To manage such interference, a co-tier uplink power control scheme which combines the Stackelberg game with two-way pricing mechanism is proposed. In this scheme, among the SBSs, one is selected as the leader and the rest are the followers. Under the premise of not violating the maximum tolerable uplink co-tier interference constraint, leader UE and follower UEs achieve the compromised uplink transmit power based on the proposed two-way bargaining procedure. The average sum-capacity of the SCN and the average uplink transmit power of leader UE and follower UEs are used as the major metrics to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme. Compared with the simulation results obtained by only controlling the transmit power of follower UEs, i.e., Stackelberg game with one-way pricing, the proposed co-tier uplink power control scheme, i.e., Stackelberg game with two-way pricing, attains higher sum-capacity with smaller transmit power.