Bargaining-Based Cooperative Co-existence Framework for LTE-U Systems
Mohamed AbdelRaheem · 2018
LTE-U is one of the promising solutions to the spectrum scarcity problem. LTE-U extends the benefits of LTE-A to the unlicensed 5 GHz band, mainly used by WiFi networks. The main challenge facing deploying the LTE-U is the coexistence between the LTE and WiFi systems such that the presence of LTE does not harm the WiFi network performance. In this paper, we introduce a bargaining-based cooperative coexistence framework that controls the LTE system access to the unlicensed band of the WiFi system. In this framework, LTE User Equipment (UE) utilizes its WiFi interfaces to act as a relay to forward the WiFi network packets using Decode and Forward (DF) cooperative communication to enhance the WiFi network performance. On return, the LTE system gains a welcomed access to the unlicensed band. The percentage of time the LTE system is allowed to access the unlicensed band is determined by bargaining theory solutions. We numerically evaluate the performance of the coexistence system where the results show that the proposed framework is beneficial for both the WiFi and LTE systems.