Clustering-based device-to-device discovery and content delivery in wireless networks

Abstract

Device-to-device (D2D) cache placement and content delivery is a recent technology that exploits idle memory capacity of mobile devices and promises to fulfill users' content needs with very low delay and without using the scarce cellular network capacity. Recent literature on D2D caching mostly concentrated on optimal cache placement and mostly disregarded the required discovery mechanisms and the accompanying overhead. In this work we propose a clustering-based procedure that is used to cache content at the helper nodes along with advertisement and discovery procedures for content delivery. We implement a Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based simulation setup to evaluate the proposed schemes. Numerical results reveal that the clustering-based user and content discovery significantly improves cellular offloading and reduces the discovery overhead with a minimal sacrifice from delay.