Incentive Mechanism Design for Two-Layer Wireless Edge Caching Networks Using Contract Theory

Abstract

Wireless caching technologies have been proposed to relieve the transmission pressures, especially, the transmission redundancy on back-haul channels. In this paper, we consider a two-layer caching network, consisting of traditional macro-cell base station (MBS) aided back-haul channels and small-cell base stations (SBSs) aided local links. The network service provider (NSP), who is in charge of the two layers, leases its resources of the secondary layer, i.e., coverage of the SBSs, to content providers (CPs) for making extra profits and releasing pressures on the back-haul channels. At the same time, CPs will evaluate whether they are provided with proper incentives to pre-cache their files in the SBSs. Considering different quality of services (QoS) provided by the two layers as well as the economical impact of the traditional layer on the secondary layer, the NSP designs the optimal incentive mechanisms within the framework of contract theory for maximizing its own profits. First, we formulate the utility of the NSP and CPs. Then, the minimum transmission requirement, reserve price and limited resources are considered as constraints in designing the optimal contract. Also, some important properties of these constraints are analyzed to facilitate the optimal contract determination process. At last, an optimal contract determination scheme is proposed, based on which the optimal coverage set is determined first, and then the corresponding optimal prices are derived with the aid of equal cost line. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimal contract in increasing the NSP's profits and incentivizing CPs to transmit on the secondary layer.