Energy-Efficient Device-to-Device Communications in LTE Public Safety Networks

Device-to-Device communications are studied in the framework of LTE public safety networks. We propose a model where devices cooperate on the short range by forming coalitions for the purpose of energy efficiency. In each coalition, a device is selected to communicate with the base station on the long range. Coalition formation is investigated both for the uplink and downlink directions. Simulation results show that significant energy savings can be achieved with the proposed approach compared to the non-collaborative case, in addition to reduced delay and enhanced quality-of-service (QoS).