Auction Based Algorithm for Distributed Resource
Allocation in Multitier-Heterogeneous Cellular
Networks
N. H. Almofari, S. Kishk, F. W. Zaki
Abstract—Due to the multi-tier heterogeneous nature of the 5G
cellular networks, where the small cells and the D2D pairs are
underlaied in the macrocell, Centralized methods for resource
allocation will be very complex. In this paper a distributed
algorithm using auction technique is adopted to maximize the
datarate of the underlay layer users, while maintaining the
interference in the macro tier within the acceptable range.
The convergence of the algorithm, and other parameters is
investigated, also the effectiveness of the solution compared to
the central solution is studied.
Index Terms—Resource allocation, D2D Relay assisted, Auc-
tion.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE exponential increase of demand on wireless commu-
nication data in the recent years enforces the designers to
evolve the cellular networks to handle this requested data rates.
Using base station (BS) to transmit data to all users in the cell
limits the ability to provide high data rates, especially when
the user equipment’s (UEs) are not far from each other and can
communicate directly through device to device (D2D) commu-
nication. D2D communication increases the data rate of the
cellular system and used as underlay of the cellular network
to improve the spectral efficiency. In D2D communication user
equipments(UEs)( which are close to each other) uses direct
link to transmit data instead of using base station (BS), while
remaining controlled by BS. Spectral efficiency and system
capacity is increased by using D2D communication. Using
D2D cause interference to the macrocell users which need
efficient interference management methods to be developed
to mitigate the interference to acceptable range. The fifth
generation (5G) heterogeneous multi-tier cellular networks
increases the data rate by using D2D communication, relays
and a lot of small base stations as underlay tier of the
macrocell [1], but this increase the complexity of the resource
allocation problem. Dual composition methods can be used to
obtain the optimal solution for resource allocation problems
which satisfy the time sharing property, but the complexity of
dual composition methods still high to be used in practical
cellular networks. New approaches from economic and game
theory gain used to solve the resource allocation problems in
distributed manner and give near to the optimal solution with
low complexity [2].
The authors in [3] propose uplink auction based resource al-
location algorithm for OFDMA networks where the resources
Authors are with communication and electronics Dept. Faculty of Engi-
neering, Mansoura University,Egypt.
978-1-5090-3267-9/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
mean subcarriers and the modulation and coding scheme, they
show that the auction algorithm gives near to the optimal
solution of the assignment problem. In [4], the authors study
device to device communication as underlay layer of the
macrocell to improves the system performance, they formu-
late the resource allocation problem to maximize the energy
efficiency and propose algorithm to jointly allocate power and
resource blocks using iterative combinational auction. their
numerical result shows that using auction improve the system
performance from energy efficiency perspective. VCG auction
are used in [5] to solve the resource allocation problem in
spectrum-sharing femtocell network consist of two tier (Macro
cell tier and femtocell tier), the objective is obtain the best
power allocation under interference temperature constraint in
the side of macrocell and power constraint in the side of
femtocell user. the authors benefit from the incentive nature
of VCG auction to obtain closed-form solution of the optimal
power allocation.
To reduce co-channel interference in small cell networks,
authors in [6] use distributed algorithm to implement efficient
resource allocation in the downlink. They use an algorithm
based in pricing concept, where each base station choose initial
power profile and scheduling wights, calculate the prices, and
update the power profile and schedule wights iteratively to
improve the data rate and fairness of sharing resources among
users. In [7] D2D communication are used as underlay to
improve the system performance and a reverse iterative com-
binatorial auction mechanism is used for resource allocation.
In reverse iterative combinatorial auction the resources are
considered as the bidders and the D2D links as the objects,
this allocation mechanism reduces the complexity and also
reduces the effect of interference on the macro users. A similar
work based on combinatorial auction is introduced in [8],
[9]. The authors in [10] use auction to introduce distributed
solution of resource allocation problems in D2D multi-tier
network. In [11] the authors study a network with energy
harvesting relays, they assume that the energy packet arrivals
are random and follow poisson distribution. Authors propose
a model to associate users to relays when considering the
energy availability called survival probability, then coloring
algorithm was used to allocate RBs to users and ensure that
the interference was minimized, finally the power control is
done by using small increments.
In this paper semi-distributed algorithm is proposed to
implement the user association to energy harvesting relays,
resource block allocation and power control. where the ENb
426
implement the classification and association of the users, then TABLE I
each relay implement the resource allocation using auction MATHEMATICAL NOTATIONS
concept and adjust the power level in iterative manner. The
Parameter Description
rest of this paper is organized as follow: the system model is
N̄ = 1, 2, . . . N Set of available resource blocks
presented in section II, the SINR and data rate calculations are
explained in section III, the concept of survival probability of L̄ = 1, 2, . . . L Set of available relays
the energy harvesting relays is given in section IV, the problem M̄ = 1, 2, . . . M Set of macro cell users
formulation and centralized method for solution is introduced D̄ = 1, 2, . . . D Set of D2D users
in section V, distributed resource allocation using Auction Ul The set of UEs served by relay l
approach is proposed in section VI, then numerical results gs The set of survived relays
are discussed in section VIII, finally the paper is concluded in
gt The set of turned off relays
section IX.
ul user served by relay l
BR B Resource block bandwidth
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
Pun , l,1 The transmitting power in the link between user ul
A two-tier LTE-A network is considered where L layer 3 l
and relay l on resource block n in the first hop
relays are overlaid on a macrocell. The relays are connected γun Unit power SINR in the first hop when user ul use
l , l,1
to the eNB by wireless connection and serve both D2D users resource block n on the relay l in the first hop
and macro users with bad channel condition, The relays have gun Interference gain in the link between user ul and
l , l,1
fixed positions and can harvest energy from its environment. relay l when using resource block n in the first hop
The bandwidth of the system is divided into N resource blocks hun Direct gain in link between user ul and relay l when
l , l,1
where Each RB occupies 1 slot (0.5 msec) in time domain and using resource block n in the first hop
(n)
180 KHz in frequency domain with subcarrier spacing of 15 Ru l Data Rate when user ul use resource block n
KHz. The subset of available resource blocks is denoted by Pumax Maximum transmitting power allowed for user ul
l
N̄=1,2,...,N and the available relays denoted by L̄= 1,2. . . ,L. Plmax Maximum transmitting power allowed for relay l
The users in the network are divided into two subsets, macro
Qu l Minimum required data Rate for user ul
users (MUE) which consist of users connected to the macro (n)
It h, i Interference threshold over resource block n in hop
cell directly or through the relays assistance and this subset i
is denoted by M̄ = 1, 2,. . . , M. The second subset consists (i)
S P(l) Survival probability of relay l in frame i
of D2D users which are connected directly if the channel
(i)
condition is good, or they use the relays to communicate E(l) Available energy in relay l at the end of frame i
(i, ma x)
with each other. In the later case the resource allocation is E(l) Maximum energy relay l can store
performed in the layer 3 relay and it is called relay-assisted (i−1)
E(l) Available energy in relay l at the beginning of frame
D2D communication. This subset is denoted by D̄ = 1,2,. . . , i
D. The set of UEs served by relay l is Ul . The association (i)
E(l) Consumed Energy in relay l in frame i
of the UEs (both cellular and D2D) to the corresponding (i)
φ(l) The harvested energy in relay l in frame i
relays considers the energy available at each relay by satisfying (i, ma x)
φ(l) Maximum harvested energy in relay l in frame i
the energy harvesting constraint. In the first hop the user are
assigned to RB, and this is considered as uplink, in the second ξ Risk factor in joules
(i)
hop the relay uses the same RB (half duplex) to transmit μ(l) The mean of harvested energy on relay l in frame i
to the receiving end of the device to device pair (downlink T Frame length
from relay perspective) or to the eNB in the case of macro w Energy frame size in joule
user (uplink from eNB view), so there is no need to allocate
coupling resource block to the relay for transmitting in the
second hop. it is assumed that, the D2D pairs is discovered and
the D2D session setup is done before the resource allocation. where γunl ,l,1 is the unit power SINR given by
The notation used in the paper are listed in table I. hunl ,l,1
γunl ,l,1 = (2)
I+σ
III. SINR AND DATA R ATE C ALCULATION
Where σ 2 = No BRB , No is the thermal noise and BRB is the
Let gunl ,l,1 and hunl ,l,1 be the interference link gain between
bandwidth of the resource block. I is the interference from
user ul and relay l on the first hop when using RB n and the
users associated to other relays and can be denoted by:
direct link gain between user ul and relay l on the first hop 
when using RB n respectively. Let Punl ,l,1 is the transmitting P(n) (n)
j,u j g j,ul ,1 (3)
power in the link between user ul and relay l on resource ∀j ∈U j , jl, j ∈L
block n. Then, the received SINR at the l th relay for a user
ul occupying the nth RB in the first hop is given by The data rate in the first hop is given by R1 = BRB log2 (1 +
Punl ,l γunl ,l,1 ) and the data rate for the second hop is expressed
SI N Ru(n)
l
= Punl ,l,1 γunl ,l,1 (1) as R2 = BR Blog2 (1 + Punl ,l γunl ,l,2 ) , observe that two hop half

427
duplex communication is used, so the achievable data rate μ(i)
(l)
is the mean of harvested energy on relay l in frame i and
equals to: I(.) is indicator function equal to one if the condition between
1
Ru(n) = min(R1, R2 ) (4) brackets is true and equal zero otherwise.
l
2
From (4) it is clear that maximum data rate will be obtained V. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
when R1 = R2 so in the rest of the paper we consider Ru(n)
l
as
Users are associated to relays, the best resource block for
Ru(n)
l
= BRB log2 (1 + Pu(n) γn )
l ,l ul ,l,1
(5) each user is determined and the transmission power level is
adjusted. The objective is maximizing the overall data rate of
the system by maximize each relay throughput.
IV. R ELAY S URVIVAL P ROBABILITY CONCEPT
(P1)
Using energy harvesting relays in the network is useful   N
1
especially in the rural areas where the relays are far from the max BRB log2 (1 + Pu(n) γn )
l ,l ul ,l
(9)
(n) (n)
au , Pu u ∈U n=1 2
power supplies. To solve the resource allocation problem in l l l l

frame by frame concept, the time is divided into equal length Subject to: 
frames, the relay is considered as survived (turn on) if it has au(n)
l
≤1 ∀n ∈ N̄ (10)
some energy at the end of the frame under consideration, the ul ∈Ul
energy of Relay l at the end of frame i can be expressed as: 
(i) (i−1) au(n) Pu(n) ≤ Pumax (11)
+ φ(i) (i) l ,l,1
l l
E(l) = E(l) (l)
− E(l) (6) ul ∈Ul
(i−1) (i) 
N 
where the E(l) is energy at the end of the frame (i-1), φ(l)
the harvested energy during the frame i, which is random au(n)
l
(n)
Pl,u l ,2
≤ Plmax (12)
(i) n=1 ul ∈Ul
variable assumed to have poisson distribution, and (l) is 
the consumed energy during frame i. So that, the survival
(i) (i)
au(n)
l
Pu(n) g (n) ≤ Ith,1
l ,l,1 u ∗ ,l,1
(n)
∀n ∈ N̄ (13)
l
probability equal to SP(l) = Pr(E(l) > 0), but energy bursts ul ∈Ul
arriving at random time instances so that the relay may drop 
the transmission at any time t because it doesn’t have enough au(n)
l
Pu(n) g (n) ≤ Ith,2
l ,l,2 u ∗ ,l,2
(n)
∀n ∈ N̄ (14)
l
energy at this time while it have some energy at the end, to ul ∈Ul

cope with this situation, the relay is said to be survived only SPli > g ∀l ∈ L̄ (15)
if it has amount of energy greater than ξ at the frame end
where ξ is a design parameter called the risk factor which Rul ≥ Qul ∀ul ∈ Ul (16)
represent the reserve energy. Survival probability formula is
(i)
SPli = Pr(E(l) > ξ) au(n)
l
∈ {0, 1} ∀ul ∈ Ul, ∀n ∈ N̄ (17)

Pu(n)
l
≥0 ∀ul ∈ Ul, ∀n ∈ N̄ (18)
    The constraint in (10) indicate that the resource block can’t
(i−1)
SPli = Pr min E(l) + min φ(i) , φ(i,max) ,
(l) (l) be assigned to more than one user (user can take more than
  (7) one RB). Constraint (11) ensures that the transmitted power in
(i,max) (i)
E(l) − E(l) > ξ the first hop (user to relay) can’t exceed the maximum power
limit and constraint (12) do the same in the second hop.
The outer (min) is inserted to ensure that available energy at The concept of reference user is used to compute the
the beginning of the frame i and the harvested energy don’t interference on each resource block I (n) , where the reference
exceed the maximum capacity of the relay battery, while the user is the most affected user from the users associated to other
(i)
inner (min) is used to ensure that the harvested energy φ(l) relays as shown in figure (1). If the interference constraint is
don’t exceed the maximum charging energy of relay l in frame satisfied for the most affected user, it will be satisfied for all
i φ(i,max)
(l)
. remaining users. the most affected user (reference user) is the
The exact survival probability given by equation (7) is very user associated with the highest interference gain gu(n) and
l
complex and hard to solve so approximated survival probabil- can be given by ul∗ = argmax gunl , j ∀ j  l. Constraint (13), (14)
ity given in [11] is used: ensures the interference don’t exceeds the threshold in the two
(i) (i)
z hops [12], [13].
μ(l)(l)  (i,max) 
−μ(l)
 e (i)
SPli = (i)
I φ (l)
> ρ (l) SPli is the survival probability [11], as discussed in section
(i) (i)
z(l) = ρ(l) /wT 
z(l) ! (8)
  IV, which is used to classify relays as ON (have the ability to
(i,max) (i) support transmissions ) or OFF (can’t support transmissions
I E(l) > ξ + E(l)
anymore), constraint(15)ensures that the used relay have high
(i)
probability to support transmission, constraint (16) ensures that
where z(l) is the number of energy packets harvested by relay data rate of each user don’t go below specific quality of service
l in frame i, T is the frame length, ρ(i)
(l)
(i)
=ξ + E(l) (i−1)
− E(l) , threshold, constraint (17) indicate that au(n)
l
is a binary variable,

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Fig. 1. Reference User Concept.
finally the constraint (18) to indicate that the transmitted power
can’t be negative.
The optimization problem in (P1) is nonconvex, in fact its
Mixed Integer Nonlinear Program (MINLP) with nonconvex
feasible set this type of problems are NP hard and need
high complexity methods to be solved, approximation methods
must be used to simplify this problem.
A. Time-Sharing Relaxation of the problem (P1)
The problem P1 is (MINLP) due to the binary (integer)
nature of the variable indicator au(n)
l
as seen in the constraint
(17), optimal solution of problem (P1) can be obtained by
using exhaustive search method which has a very high com-
putational complexity. This complexity can be reduced by
using time sharing strategy [14],[15] where au(n) l
is assumed
to be continues in the range (0, 1) to represent the fraction of
time the resource block n is assigned to user ul during one
transmission frame.
(P2)
  N
1 B. Auction as resource allocation method
max BRB log2 (1 + Pu(n) γn )
l ,l ul ,l
(19)
(n) (n)
au , Pu u ∈U n=1 2
l l l l
Subject to:
(10),(11) , (12), (13), (14), (15), (16), (18)
0 ≤ au(n)
l
≤1 ∀ul ∈ U, ∀n ∈ N̄ (20)
P2 is the relaxed version of the problem P1 where the
objective function in (P2) is concave [16], the constraint 16 is
convex and the remaining constraints is affine. The optimiza-
tion problem is nonlinear convex optimization problem that
can be solved by any standard algorithms such as interior point
algorithm [17] and unique optimal solution can be obtained.
VI. D ISTRIBUTED R ESOURCE A LLOCATION A PPROACH
As mentioned above, problem (P2) can be solved using
any standard algorithm and optimal solution can be obtained,
however, such centralized method has very high computational
complexity which is not suitable in practical networks. Auction
429
approach can be used as distributed method to solve the above
optimization problem with low complexity. First, the concept
of Auction is presented here.
A. Concept of Auction
Before the economic concepts (such as auction and stable
matching) inserted in the field of resource managements,
static resource allocation was used to assign resources to
users, which is inefficient method. Efficient resource allocation
method can be obtained by giving prices to the resource and
make market competition between user equipment’s. Auction
is one of matching methods which depend on pricing, it is
applied in real world in many applications. However in the
auctions occurs in real world the organizers and bidders take
a time to prepare and take decisions while wireless resource
allocation is real time auction. There is different types of
auctions depend on the design of the auction process and the
mechanisms used, for details of this types refer to [18]. To
understand the concept of auction consider set of objects and
set of agents which need to be matched in one to one basis.
The benefit of assign object j to agent i is denoted by B(i j),
but the agent who receive the object j must pay a price c j .
The matching objective is maximizing the net benefit which
is given by equation (21).
B(i j) − c j = M AX(B(i j) − c j ) (21)
Equation (21) called equilibrium condition and when it is
satisfied, there is no motivation for any agent to bid for another
object and change its assignment. When several agents com-
pete for smaller number of equally desirable objects without
raising their prices, this cause unterminated cycles. To avoid
this cycles each bid for an object must raise the objects price
by minimum increment. The new condition will be
B(i j) − c j = M AX(B(i j) − c j ) −  (22)
Where  is a positive number represent the minimum
increment and this called the -complementary slackness [19].
In wireless communication the concept of auction can be
applied by make transmitters bid for the resources (resource
blocks and power levels), the benefit of using the resource
is the data rate given by this resource, and the cost is the
interference introduced to the other users. B(i j) in equation
(22) replaced by
B(ul ,n) = Ru(n)
l
(23)
where Ru(n)
l
is the achievable data rate when user ul use
resource block n, and the price c j in equation (22) replaced
by cn which is the interference caused by user ul on the users
associated to other relays when using resource block n. This
cost given by
cn = (I (n) − IT(n)h ) (24)
where I (n) is the aggregated interference when using resource
block n which is given by:

I (n) = au(n)
l
Pu(n) g (n)
l ,l u ∗ ,l
(25)
l
ul ∈Ul
 The utility function for underlay tier users is given by
Uunl = w1 (Ru(n)
l
) − w2 [(I (n) − IT(n)h )]+ (26) Algorithm 2: User Classification and Association.
Where [.]+ is operator equal to max{0, .} and w1 ,w2 are the Input: Energy harvesting model, distances calculation
biasing factors selected to adjust the effect of interference method.
from underlay tier on the resource allocation. The first term Output: Set of survived relays gs , Users associated to
represent the benefit and the second term represent the cost ex- each survived relay.
pressed in interference, where (I (n) − IT(n)h ) equal 0 if IT(n)h > I (n) Step 1:Users and Relays Classification
which mean there is no cost paid for using this resource. for each relay l do
Calculate SPli using equation (8)
If SPl > g
VII. U SER A SSOCIATION AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION
add l to the survive set of relays gs
A LGORITHM
else
Survival probability is used to associate the users to relays add l to the turned off set of relays gt
where the relay is considered as turned off if its survival end
probability is lower than certain threshold. This work achieved for each user u do
by the eNB. After the users association is done, each relay If du, Bs > 2/3∗ cell radius
solves the resource allocation problem locally. The main add u to the set of users using relays Ul
algorithm below explain the procedure which calls the user else
association algorithm (algorithm 2) and resource block allo- add u to the set of macro users M̄
cation algorithm (algorithm 3). To accomplish algorithm 2 end
Step 2:Users to Relays Association
Algorithm 1: Main algorithm (User Association, Resource for each relay l do
Block and Power Allocation). for each user u in Ul do
du,l = distance between the user u and relay l
Phase I: Initialization l min= the relay for witch du,l is minimum
Each relay l estimates the channel state information end
values from previous time slot Rl = set of users where l is the closest relay
Initialize t := 0, Pu(n)
l
= (Pumax
l
)/N . end
Phase II: Update
Run Algorithm 2 to associate users to relays
repeat
for each relay l ∈ gs do
Update t= t + 1.
Build the utility matrix for all resource block and Algorithm 3: Resource Blocks Allocation Using Auction.
users based on equation (26)
Run Algorithm 3 to assign users to resource Input: Utility Matrix (Uu(n)
l
)
blocks Output: RB allocation vector al .
Update the transmission power using equation Initialize al := 0
(27) for ∀ul, n and update the utility matrix for each resource block (n), set c(n) ← 0 and
Inform the allocation variables al and Pl to other owner (n) ← 0
relays and calculate the achievable data rate initialize a queue Q to contain all users. set default value
 of  = 100 (  is the minimum bet increase).
based on current allocation Rl (t) = ul ∈U Rul (t)
end while Q is not empty do
until data rate is maximized or t ≥ Tmax ; ul = The first unassigned user;
Phase III: Allocation find (n) that maximize the utility for ul
Allocate resource blocks and power levels to the UEs
if Ru(n)
l
− c(n) ≥ 0 then
the macrocell is divided into 1000 zones, and 1000 sectors owner (n) = ul
as shown in figure (2) and the users are inserted as uniform remove current owner (n) from Q
random distribution, so when the square where the user is c(n) = c(n) + 
placed is determined, the distance to the base station and all end if
the relays can be calculated using the radiuses of the small if New User ul
give higher bid for (n) then
squares, for more detail about calculating the distances refer owner (n) = ul

to [20]. In step one, the survival probability for all relays Return previous owner ul to queue
in the network is calculated using equation (8), then if its end if
end
greater than specific threshold (g) the relay is assumed to have
enough energy for transmission, else if the survival probability
is lower than (g) the relay is considered as turned off and

430
 TABLE II
NETWORK PARAMETERS

Parameter Value
Cell radius 1000 m
Carrier frequency 2.6 GHz
Thermal noise (No) -174 dBm/Hz
Maximum transmitted power by Ues 0.2 watt
Maximum transmitted power by relays 1 watt
Resource block bandwidth 180 KHz

Fig. 2. Example of dividing the cell to 15 zones and 15 sectors.

it’s not a factor of the network performance. Also the users

must be classified as either relay assisted users or cellular
users, where the users inside circle centered in the eNB with
radius (2/3*cell radius) is considered as cellular users. In the
second step the users are classified as relay assisted associated
to the survived relays, where the users are associated to the
nearest relay. If the user is near a specific relay and this relay
is turned off (survival probability <g) the user associated to
the nearest ON relay or to the eNB. The output of algorithm 2
is a set of survival relays and its associated users, in algorithm
3 auction concept is used to allocate users to each relay using
utility function given by equation (26). In the main algorithm Fig. 3. Centralized Solution Vs Distributed Solution using Auction and Stable
power is updated in each iteration to reach the adequate power Matching.
level for transmission using the Generalized Algorithm for
Constrained Power Control (GDCPC)[21]. The power update
equation is given by: The centralized solution of the optimization problem (P2)
⎧ is obtained using cvx. In the Auction process the minimum
⎪
⎪
⎨ SI N RT hr
Pu(n) (t), if SI N RT hr
Pu(n) (t) ≤ Pu(n),max
(n) (n) increment parameter  is chosen to be 100 to reduce the
Pu(n)
l l l
(t + 1) = SI N Ru l SI N Ru l
l
⎪
⎪ P̂, otherwise number of iterations. The wights w1 and w2 equal to 1, which
⎩ make the auction process choose the best RB depend on
(27)
the data rate and the effect of interference is adjusted using
Where P̂ is chosen randomly in the range of 0 ≤ P̂ ≤ Pu(n),max
l
. power control iterations. the result is averaged over different
Choosing small values of P̂ decrease the user interference realizations which mean different positions of the users and
affecting the other users and reduce the consumed energy in different channel gains. when calculating the data rates the
the system. users connected to the eNB is neglected and the data rate
is maximized at each relay cell, then the sum data rate is
calculated. Figure (3) shows that, the data rate is increased
VIII. S IMULATION R ESULT AND D ISCUSSION by increasing the number of users (each user is assigned one
Matalb simulation is developed to verify the algorithm RB) and the solution using auction give near to the optimal
effectiveness and the system performance. Single cell system solution and achieve about 0.8 efficiency compared to the
is considered, where four layer 3 relays are used to enhance the centralized solution with reduced complexity. It’s observed
edge users data rates and assist D2D users. The relays located that the auction process choose the resource blocks allocation
75% far from the cell center and separated by 90 degree from vector very close to the optimal solution. Using auction to
each other to cover the whole cell area as shown in figure choose the resource blocks and power levels jointly enhances
(2). Cost 231 Hata model is used to estimate the pathloss and algorithm performance. The performance of the auction based
channel gains. the users inserted uniformly on the entire cell algorithm also compared to stable matching based algorithm
area. all the D2D pairs assumed to be relay assisted users. The with the same parameters and power control is shown. It’s
network parameters is listed in table (II). observed that auction give slightly higher data rate in cost of

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Fig. 4. Algorithm Convergence for Different Number of Users.
longer simulation time. To study the convergence behavior of
the auction process the sum of data rate of users connected to
relay 1 is calculated and plotted compared to the number of
auction process iterations for different number of users. It is
observed from Figure (4) that the algorithm converge in 110
iteration when 100 users is connected to relay 1 while it is
converge in 70 iterations for 50 user, which is relatively small
number of auction iterations compared to previous researches.
IX. C ONCLUSION
A low complexity algorithm is introduced to solve the
resource allocation problem in multitier heterogenous cellular
network with D2D communication and energy harvesting
relays. eNB use Survival probability to allocate users to energy
harvesting relays. Then, distributed resource block allocation
using auction concept is used to reduce the solution complex-
ity. Finally the interference levels is managed using power
control mechanism. The proposed algorithm give near to the
optimal solution with efficiency about 0.8 of the centralized
solution, while significantly reduce the complexity and reduce
the processing load on the central node (eNB). The proposed
auction algorithm is compared with stable matching and give
slightly higher data rate than stable matching approach. The
auction process in each relay converges in relatively small
number of iterations even in dense scenarios.
In the future work, the effect of mobility on the solution of
the resource allocation problem will be investigated. Also,
joint power and resource block allocation will be used to
enhance the efficiency of the distributed solution, and using
other auction methods such as combinatorial auction will
considered.
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 Nasser H. Almofari is a PhD researcher at Fac- Fayez W. Zaki is a professor at Faculty of Engi-
ulty of Engineering, Mansoura University, Egypt. neering, Mansoura University. He received the B.Sc.
On scholarship from Higher Education and Scien- in Communication Eng. from Menofia University
tific Research Ministry ,Yemen. He received the Egypt 1969, M.Sc. Communication Eng. from Hel-
B.Sc. degree in Comm. Engineering from Faculty wan University Egypt 1975, and Ph. D. from Liv-
of Engineering, Sana’a University in 2006. He re- erpool University 1982. Worked as a demonstrator
ceived M.Sc. degree from the Mansoura University at Mansoura University, Egypt from 1969, Lecture
in 2013. His research interests are Mobile Com- assistant from 1975, lecturer from 1982, Associate
munication(5G), Resource Allocation and Computer Prof. from 1988, and Prof. from 1994. Head of Elec-
Networks tronics and Communication Engineering Department
Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University from
2002 till 2005. His research interest Digital Communications, Mobile Com-
munications, Communications Networks, Speech and Image processing. He
Sherif S. Kishk, Ph.D. Sherif S. Kishk is an supervised several MSc and PhD thesis. He has published several papers in
associate professor at Faculty of Engineering, Man- refereed journals and international conferences. He is now a member of the
soura University. Dr Kishk received the B.Sc. degree professorship promotion committee in Egypt.
in Electronics and Communications Engineering in
1992, Mansoura University, Egypt. and the M.Sc. de-
gree in Electrical Communications 1995 from Man-
soura University,Egypt. He received another M.Sc.
degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in
2001 from the University of Connecticut, CT, USA.
He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and
Computer Engineering in 2004 from the University
of Connecticut, CT, USA. Dr. Kishk is the director of Mansoura University IT
center, and the councilor of the Mansoura University IEEE student branch. In
2014/2015 Dr. Kishk joined the SpinCom lab at the University of Minnesota
as a visiting scholar. Dr. Kishk research interests include Optical processing,
image processing, wireless communications, and resource allocation.

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