Potential game approach for self-organization scheme in open access heterogeneous networks

In the present paper, a self-organization scheme for joint base station selection and resource block allocation in an OFDMA cellular network is proposed. The network consists of overlaying macrocell and indoor picocells with open access configuration. Inspired by the cognitive radio technology, each mobile user in heterogeneous network selects the most appropriate base station and allocates resource blocks in a decentralized fashion in order to manage the cross- and co-tier interference, and improve the throughput performance. The problem is formulated as a potential game, which is demonstrated to converge to a Nash equilibrium when distributed sequential play based on the best response dynamics is adopted. The simulation results show that the proposed self-organization scheme improves the uplink system capacity of the heterogeneous networks with a slight loss of the picocell performance.