Competition vs. Cooperation: A Game-Theoretic Decision Analysis for MIMO HetNets

摘要

This paper addresses the problem of competition vs. cooperation in thedownlink, between base stations (BSs), of a multiple input multiple output(MIMO) interference, heterogeneous wireless network (HetNet). This researchpresents a scenario where a macrocell base station (MBS) and a cochannelfemtocell base station (FBS) each simultaneously serving their own userequipment (UE), has to choose to act as individual systems or to cooperate incoordinated multipoint transmission (CoMP). The paper employes both thetheories of non-cooperative and cooperative games in a unified procedure toanalyze the decision making process. The BSs of the competing system areassumed to operate at the\emph{}maximum expected sumrate\emph{}(MESR)\emph{}correlated equilibrium\emph{}(CE), which is comparedagainst the value of CoMP to establish the stability of the coalition. It isproven that there exists a threshold geographical separation, $d_{\text{th}}$,between the macrocell user equipment (MUE) and FBS, under which the region ofcoordination is non-empty. Theoretical results are verified throughsimulations.