Joint Spectral and Energy Efficient Multi-hop D2D Communication Underlay 5G Networks

Recent D2D releases opened many horizons for 5G to fully benefit from the advantages of inter-cell multi-hop communications and expand its application areas. However, the spectrum optimization and energy mitigation over multiple nodes without a central synchronization between devices is not always feasible especially in a dense area network. To overcome these issues, we extend our previous work on joint energy and spectral efficiency in direct D2D communications by a multi-hop D2D scenario where the best relay is selected based on mixed strategy game theory approach to guarantee both the spectral and energy efficiency within the cell, while involving all cellular devices in the relay selection process. Our choice is driven by two main conflict situations; the first when a relay is selected by a set of D2D pairs, and the second when the best relay is assigned for the first connected D2D pair causing performance decrease for others. This solution provides a reliable data transmission for D2D multihop communications underlay 5G networks and assists users with inferior channel conditions to implement efficient multi-hop transmissions.