Stackelberg game based interference management for two-tier femtocell networks

Femtocell is viewed as a promising option for mobile operators to improve coverage and provide high-data-rate services in a cost-effective manner. This paper considers the uplink interference management problem in a spectrum-sharing femtocell network. Assuming that the macrocell base station (MBS) is rewarded for sharing the spectrum with femtocells by setting a reasonable interference cap (IC) for femtocell users’ (FUEs’) transmissions. Within IC, the FUEs allocate their transmission powers competitively while not introducing much interference to both the macrocell users (MUEs) and other FUEs. A Stackelberg game is formulated to jointly maximize the utility of MBS and the individual utility of FUEs. Specifically, the maximum tolerable interference at the MBS is used as the resource that the leader (MBS) and the followers (FUEs) compete for. Then, the backward induction method is applied to achieve the Stackelberg equilibrium and a distributed power update rule is developed for FUEs. In addition, the implementation protocol is presented, some issues related to the implementations and some future extensions regarding the MUEs’ uplink protection are discussed. Lastly, numerical results demonstrate the performance of our proposed power allocation in detail, and show the effects of varying the number of FBSs and changing other system parameters on the system’s performance.