A Stackelberg Game for Incentive Proactive Caching Mechanisms in Wireless Networks

摘要

In this paper, an incentive proactive cache mechanism in cache-enabled smallcell networks (SCNs) is proposed, in order to motivate the content providers(CPs) to participate in the caching procedure. A network composed of a singlemobile network operator (MNO) and multiple CPs is considered. The MNO aims todefine the price it charges the CPs to maximize its revenue while the CPscompete to determine the number of files they cache at the MNO's small basestations (SBSs) to improve the quality of service (QoS) of their users. Thisproblem is formulated as a Stackelberg game where a single MNO is considered asthe leader and the multiple CPs willing to cache files are the followers. Thefollowers game is modeled as a non-cooperative game and both the existence anduniqueness of a Nash equilibrium (NE) are proved. The closed-form expression ofthe NE which corresponds to the amount of storage each CP requests from the MNOis derived. An optimization problem is formulated at the MNO side to determinethe optimal price that the MNO should charge the CPs. Simulation results showthat at the equilibrium, the MNO and CPs can all achieve a utility that is upto 50% higher than the cases in which the prices and storage quantities arerequested arbitrarily.