Femto-Cloud Formation: A Coalitional Game-Theoretic Approach

This paper studies formation of local femto-clouds in a UMTS LTE network via a cooperative game-theoretic formulation. Femtocell access points (FAPs) equipped with processing power form collaborative coalitions, namely, femto-clouds, with neighboring FAPs and share their computational resources in exchange for monetary incentives. Femto-clouds are formed with the aim to avoid the remote cloud costs while improving the quality of experience (QoE) of users in terms of handling latency. The core of the formulated game represents an optimal structure for femto-clouds such that the computational resources of FAPs are maximally exploited, yet the incentive earned by each femto-cloud is divided among the FAPs in a fair fashion. Numerical simulations using NS3 verify superior QoE of users and higher incentives to FAP owners as compared with alternative schemes.