An Overlapping Coalition Formation Game Based Multicast Scheme in Backhaul-Limited Small Cell Networks

Abstract

This paper studies the resource allocation for multicast transmission in wireless small cell networks, which allocates appropriate Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) on each physical Resource Block (RB). This problem is not trivial due to the impact of interference and the limited wireless backhaul. We first formulate our concerned problem with the objective of maximizing the network throughput. Afterwards, we utilize framed overlapping coalition formulation game theory to design a distributed resource allocation algorithm. We further analyze the stability and convergence of the proposed algorithm. Finally, we conduct extensive simulations to demonstrate that the limited wireless backhaul capacity is an important factor when identifying the optimal multicast resource allocation solution, and our proposed algorithm can significantly improve the multicast throughput.