Energy Efficient Price Based Power Allocation in a Small Cell Network by Using a Stackelberg Game

Small cell networks are playing a pivotal role in increasing coverage and capacity of cellular networks which are extensively in last few years. However, the limited number of methods for optimal control of cross-layer interference and energy efficiency issues are paramount challenges of these networks. In this paper, a novel approach for an energy efficient communication in a two-tier small cell network is proposed. We have suggested pricing on interference and controlling transmit power to mitigate cross-layer interference and improve energy efficiency. In order to formulate the problem, the macrocell base station (MBS) and femtocell base stations (FBSs) act as leader and followers of a Stackelberg game, respectively. The MBS uses the pricing on the amount of the received interference to protect itself against the interference caused by FBSs. The FBSs goal is to maximize their energy efficiency and minimize the amount of price that should be paid to MBS by using a power control under the maximum allowable transmit power constraint. Maximizing energy efficiency is a non-linear fractional programming which is transformed to a subtractive form, and thus, it can be solved by using the iterative power allocation algorithm. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm is investigated through simulation results.