A new PRB sharing scheme in dual-hop LTE-advanced system using game theory

Relaying is a promising technique for the next generation cellular networks. It is highly recommended in the 3GPP LTE-Advanced because it is expected to satisfy the ever growing capacity and coverage demands in a cost-efficient way. Yet, in order to fully exploit the benefits of relaying, we should examine the radio resource allocation between the eNB and the relay nodes. In this paper, we propose a dynamic Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) allocation scheme in a dual-hop LTE-advanced by using game theory. We define a new repeated game in which a selfish node can achieve cooperative spectrum opportunities sharing under the threat of punishment. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme significantly improves the spectrum utilization and total achieved throughput in the system. We also demonstrate that the game rapidly attain Pareto-efficiency.