IEEE ICC 2012 - Cognitive Radio and Networks Symposium

Spectrum Sharing and Resource Allocation for

Energy-Efficient Heterogeneous Cognitive Radio
Networks with Femtocells
Renchao Xie∗† , F. Richard Yu∗ , and Hong Ji†
∗ Key Laboratory of Universal Wireless Communication, Ministry of Education,
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, P.R. China
† Depart. of Systems and Computer Eng., Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Abstract—In heterogeneous wireless networks with femtocells,
the issue of interference between femtocells and macrocells should
be carefully considered. Using cognitive radio for interference
management is a promising technique in heterogeneous wireless
networks with femtocells. In this paper, we study the energy
efficiency aspect of spectrum sharing and resource allocation in
heterogeneous wireless networks with femtocells and cognitive
radios. We use the price of interference to model the interference
between femtocells and macrocells. We formulate the problem of
interference management and power allocation as a Stackelberg
game. In addition, an iteration algorithm based on price updating
is proposed to obtain the Stackelberg equilibrium solution to
the resource allocation problem for energy efficiency. Simulation
results are presented to show that the proposed scheme can
improve energy efficiency significantly in heterogeneous wireless
networks with femtocells and cognitive radios.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Femtocell has been considered as a promising technique to
increase the network coverage and capacity for the growing
demands of cellular services, and has been integrated in current
and future radio access networks [1]. Although deploying fem-
tocells in a cellular network can improve system performance,
the issue of interference between femtocells and macrocells is
incurred due to sharing the same spectrum resource by both
the femtocell and macrocell.
Some work has been done for spectrum sharing for inter-
ference management in heterogeneous cellular networks with
femtocells [2], [3]. The problem of spectrum sharing for
interference management is studied in [2]. Then the authors
formulate the issue of power control for spectrum sharing as a
Stackelberg game under the maximum interference constraint
for macrocell base stations. Authors of [3] take the universal
frequency reuse spectrum sharing strategy and study power
control in two-tier femtocell networks, then a distributed algo-
rithm based on SINR adaptation at femtocells is proposed to
alleviate the cross-tier interference at the macrocell.
This work was jointly supported by State Key Program of National Nat-
ural Science of China (Grant No. 60832009), the National Natural Science
Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholar (Grant No. 61001115), Natural
Science Foundation of Beijing, China (Grant No. 4102044), and the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Cognitive radio allows secondary users (SUs) to monitor
the surrounding radio environment and dynamically utilize
the spectrum resource licensed to primary users (PUs) to
improve the spectrum efficiency [4]. Since SUs are considered
to be lower priority in using the spectrum allocated to a
PU, a fundamental requirement is to avoid the interference to
potential PUs in their vicinity [5].
Using cognitive radio techniques for interference manage-
ment during spectrum sharing has attracted some attention [6],
[7]. The authors of [6] investigate interference management
for long term evolution (LTE) networks with femtocells us-
ing cognitive radio techniques. A distributed architecture for
LTE networks is proposed. In [7], an enhanced opportunistic
interference mitigation scheme is proposed to improve the data
rate of cognitive networks. Moreover, to mitigate cross-tier
interference, the authors apply this interference management
scheme to two-tier femtocell networks.
Although some work has been done for spectrum sharing for
interference management in heterogeneous wireless networks
with femtocells and cognitive radios, the energy efficiency
aspect in this setting is largely ignored. However, rapidly rising
energy costs and increasingly rigid environmental standards
have led to an emerging trend of addressing the energy
efficiency aspect of wireless communication technologies [8].
Since both cognitive radio and femtocell are promising tech-
nologies to enable energy efficiency in wireless networks [9],
the interplay between them from energy efficiency perspective
merits further research.
In this study, our work is different from previous works.
We mainly focus on the energy efficiency aspect of spectrum
sharing and resource allocation in heterogeneous wireless
networks with femtocells and cognitive radios. To mitigate
the interference effect, we use the price of interference in
heterogeneous wireless networks to model the interference
between femtocells and macrocells. Then, we formulate the
optimization problem as a Stackelberg game. In addition, an
iteration algorithm based on price updating is proposed to
obtain the Stackelberg equilibrium solution. Simulation results
are presented to show that the proposed scheme can improve

978-1-4577-2053-6/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 1661

energy efficiency significantly in heterogeneous wireless net- energy efficiency can be expressed as
works with femtocells and cognitive radios.  2

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II, W log2 1 + hσ2p
the system model is given. The Stackelberg game is formulated η= , (1)
pa + p
in Section III. Then the equilibrium solution is solved in
Section IV. Simulation results are presented and discussed in where W is the transmission bandwidth, pa denotes the addi-
Section V. Finally, we conclude this study in Section VI. tional circuit power consumption of devices during transmis-
sions (e.g., digital-to-analog converters, filters, etc). h and p
II. S YSTEM M ODEL are the channel gain and power allocation, respectively. σ 2 is
A. Network Model the additive Gaussian white noise with zero mean and unit
variation.
We consider a downlink femtocell-based heterogeneous cog- The second energy efficiency performance criterion takes the
nitive radio network including one macro base station (MBS) power consumption cost into account during transmissions, and
and multiple macro users (MUs), multiple femtocells, and the utility function can be written as follows [11].
multiple femtocell secondary users (FSUs). In the femtocells,  
we assume that there is a femtocell base station (FBS) to h2 p
η = W log2 1 + 2 − μp, (2)
provide service to FSUs. We assume that the MBS has the σ
cognitive capability to be aware of the access of the femtocells,
and the FBSs also have the cognitive capability to monitor where μ is a price parameter with the unit of bit/s/W.
the surround radio channel environment and are allowed to In the rest of paper, we will use (2) as the criterion for
randomly access to the sub-bands. In this case, there is a cross- energy efficient transmissions in the rest of paper.
tier interference to MUs from the femtocells. To reduce the
effect from the interference of femtocells, the MBS will charge III. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
an interference price to femtocells. And the femtocells will
adaptively adjust the transmission power or change the access In this section, we formulate the problem of interference
of sub-bands for energy efficient transmissions. Moreover, two price determination and power allocation for energy efficient
types of femtocells are assumed: standalone femtocells and transmissions as a Stackelberg game. In the formulation, the
collocated femtocells. The standalone femtocells are located MBS is the leader, and the femtocells are the followers.
far away from the other femtocells, which means that the co- For the MUs in the macrocell, to reduce the interference
tier interference between standalone femtocells can be ignored. effect from femtocells, the MBS needs to perform power
For the collocated femtocells, there is co-tier interference. allocation and charge an interference price to femtocells for
We assume that each sub-band is allocated to one MU, energy efficient transmissions. Therefore, the utility function
and around the MU there are N collocated femtocells and of MBS can be written as follows.
K standalone femtocells utilizing the same sub-band with ⎛ ⎞
pm h2m
MU, which means that there is an interference from these πm = W log2 ⎝1 + 
N 
K
⎠
(N + K) femtocells to the MU. The algorithms in the rest 2 +
σm 2 p +
gnm n
2 p
gkm k
 n=1 k=1  (3)
of paper are concerned with the case of one sub-band, which

K
2 2
can be easily extended to the case of multiple sub-bands. − μm pm + λ gnm pn + gkm pk ,
Based on the discussion above, we can formulate the problem n=1 k=1

of interference price determination and power allocation for
energy efficiency as a Stackelberg game. Before presenting the
problem formulation, we first introduce the energy efficiency
performance criteria in the following subsection.
B. Energy Efficiency Performance Criteria
Energy efficient wireless communications have become an
important issue in the recent years [10], [11]. Two performance
criteria are usually used to measure the energy efficiency.
One method is to use bits per Joule [10] to measure energy
efficiency, and the other one is to take the power consumption
cost into account during transmissions [11].
For the first energy efficiency performance criterion, energy
efficiency is defined as the ratio of transmission capacity to
transmission power [10]. For example, in OFDMA networks,
where W is the transmission bandwidth of the sub-band, σm
is the additive Gaussian white noise with zero mean and unit
variation. pm and hm are the transmission power and channel
gain from MBS to MU m, respectively. pn and gnm are the
transmission power for collocated femtocell n and channel gain
from femtocell n to MU m, respectively. pk and gkm are the
transmission power for standalone femtocell k and the channel
gain from femtocell k to MU m, respectively. μm ≥ 0 is the
interference price parameter and λ ≥ 0 is the price charged to
femtocells due to interference.
For the femtocells, they can monitor the environment (e.g.,
channel conditions) and the interference price offered by MBS,
and then adaptively adjust the transmission power to maximize
its utility for energy efficient transmissions. Therefore, for the
collocated femtocells n ∈ {1, ..., N }, the utility function can

1662
be expressed as Therefore, given the other femtocells’ strategy of power
⎛ ⎞ allocation, we differentiate (4) with respect to pn and let
∂πn
⎜ ⎟ ∂pn = 0. We can get the optimal strategy response as
⎜ pn h2n ⎟ 2  +
πn = W log2⎜1+ ⎟ −μn pn −λgnm pn , (4) W σn2 +In
⎝

N
2 p
⎠ p∗n = − , n ∈ {1, ..., N }, (8)
σn2 + gjn j 2 )ln 2
(μn +λgnm h2n
j=1,j=n

N
where hn is the channel gain for collocated femtocell n. σn where In = 2
gjn pj . The solution of (8) is the optimal
includes the effect of the interference from MBS and the j=1,j=n
additive Gaussian white noise (AWGN). μn is the interference response strategy for collocated femtocells when the strategy
price parameter for femtocell n. gjn is the channel gain from of other femtocells is given. To prove the existence of the non-
other collocated femtocell j to femtocell n. The first term cooperative power competition game, we give the theorem as
denotes the transmission rate for femtocell n, and the second follows.
and third terms represent the power consumption cost and the Theorem 1: The non-cooperative power competitive game G
interference cost, respectively. exists at least one Nash equilibrium, and the power allocation
For the standalone femtocells, there is no interference effect in (8) is one of the Nash equilibrium points.
Proof: First, pn ≥ 0 is nonempty and convex. Then we only
from the other femtocells. Thus, we can write the utility
need to prove the utility function πn is a concave function. We
function for femtocell k ∈ {1, ..., K} as
can get the twice derivation of πn as
 
pk h2k 2 ∂ 2 πn W h4n
πk = W log2 1 + 2 − μk pk − λgkm pk , (5) = − < 0. (9)
σk ∂ 2 pn 2
(σn2 + In + pn h2n ) ln 2
where hk is the channel gain for standalone femtocell k. Therefore, we know that the utility function πn is a concave
σk includes the effect of an interference from MBS and the function. Hence, the non-cooperative power competitive game
AWGN, μk is the power consumption cost for femtocell k. G is a concave game. According to [12], the concave game has
at least one Nash equilibrium.
IV. S TACKELBERG E QUILIBRIUM S OLUTION Next, from (9), we know that ∂π n
∂pn is a strictly mono-
A. Energy Efficient Power Allocation for Femtocells tonic decreasing function about the pn . Obviously, we have
lim ∂π∂pn < 0, and
n
Given the interference price from MBS, the femtocells will pn →∞
do the power allocation for energy efficient transmissions. We ∂πn W h2n 
2
fisrt consider the power allocation for collocated femtocells, lim = lim 2
− μn + λgnm . (10)
pn →0 ∂pn pn →0 (σn + In ) ln 2
then we consider the power allocation for standalone femtocell-
∂πn
s. Due to the co-tier interference for the collocated femtocells, We can get two cases for (10) as follows: (1). lim ≤ 0;
pn →0 ∂pn
the femtocell n allocates the transmission power pn will be ∂πn
(2). lim > 0.
affected by the power allocation of other collocated femtocells. pn →0 ∂pn
Therefore, given the interference price λ, the power allocation For the first case, the utility function πn is strictly monotonic
between collocated femtocells could be viewed as a non- decreasing about pn . Hence, the optimal value is obtained
cooperative power competition game G = {N , {pn }, {πn }}, at the left endpoint with p∗n = 0. For the second case,
where N = {1, ..., N } is the set of players, pn is the strategy we have lim ∂π ∂pn > 0. Therefore, the utility function πn
n
pn →0
and πn is the payoff function of collocated femtocell n. first increases with pn , then at the certain point begins to
Hence, we can find a Nash equilibrium by solving the best decrease with pn . In this case, the optimal power allocation
σ 2 +I
response function. When the other players’ strategy p−n = is p∗n = (μn +λgW2 ) ln 2 − nh2 n , n ∈ {1, ..., N }. Hence, (8) is
nm n
(p1 , ...pn−1 , pn+1 , ..., pN ) is given, the best response function one of the Nash equilibriums. Thus, Theorem 1 is proved.
of collocated femtocell n can be defined as To get the Nash equilibrium for the power competition game,
we can use the power iteration algorithm as follows.
B (p−n ) = arg max πn (pn , p−n ) . (6) Power Allocation Iteration Algorithm
pn
1). Initialization: let pn=0, ∀n ∈ {1, ..., N }, maximum iteration
Let p∗ = (p∗1 , ..., p∗N ) be the Nash equilibrium of non- count Lmax and initial iteration count l = 0.
cooperative power competition game. Thus p∗ must satisfy 2). Repeat iterations:
the following condition a). l = l + 1;
 b). for n = 1 to N , do
p∗n = B p∗−n , ∀n, (7)
Compute the powerallocation as (8)  
 (l) (l−1)   (l−1) 
where p∗−n denotes the set of best responses of other players c). Until l>Lmax or pn −pn /pn  ≤ ε, ∀n, end
except n. repeat.

1663
 In the   above algorithm, the condition
 (l) (l−1)   (l−1) 
pn −pn /pn  ≤ ε, ∀n is a stop criteria. If
that condition is not satisfied after l > Lmax , the iteration
algorithm also stops. The convergence of the above iteration
algorithm has been proved in [13].
For the standalone femtocells, to find the optimal power al-
location for energy efficient transmissions, we can differentiate
(5) with respect to pk and let ∂π∂pk = 0, we can get
k
 +
W σk2
p∗k = 2 ) ln 2 − , k ∈ {1, ..., K}. (11)
(μk + λgkm h2k
Therefore, (11) is the optimal response strategy for standalone
femtocells when the interference price is given by the MBS.
B. Interference Price Determination and Power Allocation for
the Macrocell
The aim of the MBS is to do the power allocation and deter-
mine the interference price for energy efficiency to maximize
its utility function based on the power allocation for femtocells.
When the response strategy of femtocells is given in the above
subsection, we substitute (8) and (11) into (3) and get (12) at
the top of next page.
By observing (12), πm is a function about pm and price
λ. To maximize the utility function πm , we can decompose
the optimization in (12) into two sub optimization problems:
do the power allocation to maximize πm by fixing the price
and solve the optimal price determination, respectively. First,
assume that the interference price λ is determined, we can
do the optimal power allocation to maximize πm as follows.
Xn and Xk , which cannot get the derivation directly to solve λ.
However, given Xn and Xk , function πm is a continue differ-
entiable function. Therefore, let Ln = Qn g2W ln 2 − gμ2n , n =
nm nm
{1, ..., N }, Lk = Vk g2W ln 2 − gμ2k , k = {1, ..., K}, sort Ln
km km
and Lk in the order of ascending, and let L1 ≤ ... ≤ LN +K
without loss generality. Hence, we get N + K intervals
[0, L1 ],...,[LK+N −1 , LK+N ]. And by piecewise differentiating
of function πm in each interval, we can easily prove func-
tion πm is a concave function except at most K + N non-
differentiable points.
Hence, we can find the interference price λ and power
allocation to maximize πm . To solve the λ, many optimization
methods can be used such as binary search algorithm, gradient
based iteration algorithm and so on.
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSIONS
In this section, we use computer simulations to evaluate
the performance. In the simulations, we assume that MUs
and femtocells are randomly located in the macrocells. The
simulation parameters are set as follows. The unit bandwidth
is used and the maximum transmit power of MBS is 3W . The
price parameters are set as μm = μn = μk = 2 for all the
femtocells and MBS.
We evaluate the performance of Stackelberg game equilib-
rium between the MBS and the femtocells in term of the
interference price iteration in Fig. 1. In the simulation, we
assume that there are two collocated femtocells. From the
Fig. 1, we can see that as the interference price iteration
increases, the utility function gradually converge to stable

N  2
+
We let Im = σm 2
+ 2
gnm W σn +In value. That means that the femtocells and MBS obtain the
2 ) ln 2 −
(μn +λgnm h2n +
 n=1  Stackelberg equilibrium.
+

K
2 W σ2 When the number of femtocells gradually increases in the
gkm − hk2 , then we differentiate πm
k=1 ( 2
μk +λgkm ) ln 2 k network, the interference to MBS will increase, which in turn
with respect to pm and let ∂π ∂pm = 0. Therefore, the optimal
m will affect the performance of energy efficient transmission.
power allocation for energy efficient transmissions can be In the Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, we demonstrate the performance
obtained as  + of energy efficiency in terms of the number of femtocells.
W Im In the figures, the proposed scheme is the energy efficient
pm = − 2 . (13)
μm ln 2 hm interference management and power allocation scheme pre-
From (13), we know that if the interference price is de- sented in this paper, while the existing scheme denotes the
termined, the optimal power allocation for energy efficient power allocation scheme without considering energy efficiency
transmissions can be solved as (13). Due to the piecewise [14]. The average energy efficiency of femtocells is evaluated
property about λ, to determine the price λ to maximize πm , we in Fig. 2. From the figure, we know that as the number
σ 2 +I σ2 of femtocells increases, the cross-tier interference between
let Qn = nh2 n and Vk = hk2 , and we introduce the indicator
n k MBS and femtocells will increase. Hence, the average energy
function for all n ∈ {1, ..., N } as follows efficiency will decreases. And as the number of femtocells

1, λ < Qn g2W ln 2 − gμ2n increases, the MBS will charge higher interference price to
Xn = nm nm (14) femtocells to reduce the interference effect, thus the revenue
0, otherwise
of MBS for energy efficiency will increases in the Fig. 3.
for all k ∈ {k, ..., K}, we introduce an indicator function as
 VI. C ONCLUSIONS
1, λ < Vk g2W ln 2 − gμ2k
Xk = km km (15) In this paper, we have studied the issues of spectrum sharing
0, otherwise
and power allocation for energy efficient transmissions in
Thus substituting the (14) and (15) into (12), we can observe heterogeneous wireless networks with femtocells and cognitive
that πm is piecewise function about λ due to indicator function radios. We have introduced an interference price to measure the

1664
 ⎛ ⎞
⎜ pm h2m ⎟
πm = W log2 ⎝1 +    + ⎠
 2
N 2 +In +
σn 
K σ2
W 2 W
2 +
σm gnm − + g − k

2 ) ln 2
(μn +λgnm 2
hn km
( μk +λg 2 ) h2 (12)
+ 
n=1 k=1 ln 2 k
 +  km

N
2 W
2
σn +In

K
2 W σk2
−μm pm +λ gnm − + gkm −
n=1
2 ) ln 2
(μn +λgnm h2n
k=1 (μk +λgkm
2
) ln 2 h2k

4.5
MBS
Femtocell 1 12
4 Femtocell 2

10
3.5
Energy Efficiency

Energy Efficiency of MBS

3

6
2.5

4
2 Proposed Scheme
Existing Scheme
2
1.5

0
1
0 50 100 150 200
Number of Price Iteration −2
0 5 10 15 20
Number of Femtocells

Fig. 1. Convergence of the Stackelberg game equilibrium. Fig. 3. The performance of energy efficiency of MBS versus the number of
femtocells.

2 [2] X. Kang, Y.-C. Liang, and H. K. Garg, “Distributed power control

Proposed Scheme
Existing Scheme for spectrum-sharing femtocell networks using stackelberg game,” in
1.8
Proc. IEEE ICC’11, (Kyoto, Japan), pp. 1–5, Jun. 2011.
Average Energy Efficiency of Femtocells

1.6
[3] V. Chandrasekhar, J. G. Andrews, T. Muharemovic, Z. Shen, and A. Gath-
erer, “Power control in two-tier femtocell networks,” IEEE Wireless
1.4 Comm., vol. 8, no. 8, pp. 4316–4328, Aug. 2009.
[4] P. Si, H. Ji, F. R. Yu, and V. C. M. Leung, “Optimal cooperative
1.2 internetwork spectrum sharing for cognitive radio systems with spectrum
pooling,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Tech., vol. 59, no. 4, May 2010.
1 [5] F. R. Yu, M. Huang, and H. Tang, “Biologically inspired consensus-based
spectrum sensing in mobile ad hoc networks with cognitive radios,” IEEE
0.8
Networks, pp. 26–30, May 2010.
0.6
[6] A. Attar, V. Krishnamurthy, and O. N. Gharehshiran, “Interference
management using cognitive base-stations for UMTS LTE,” IEEE Comm.
0.4 Mag., vol. 49, no. 8, pp. 152–159, Aug. 2011.
0 5 10 15 20
Number of Femtocells [7] S.-M. Cheng, W. C. Ao, and K.-C. Chen, “Efficiency of a cognitive radio
link with opportunistic interference mitigation,” IEEE Trans. Wireless
Fig. 2. The performance of system average energy efficiency of femtocells
Commun., vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 1715–1720, Jun. 2011.
versus the number of femtocells.
[8] F. R. Yu, X. Zhang, and V. C. M. Leung, Green Communications and
Networking. New York: CRC Press, 2012.
[9] G. Gur and F. Alagoz, “Green wireless communications via cognitive
interference effect from femtocells to MBS. We have formu- dimension: an overview,” IEEE Network, vol. 25, pp. 50–56, Mar. 2011.
lated the resource allocation problem as a Stackelberg game. [10] G. Miao, N. Himayat, and G. Y. Li, “Energy-efficient link adaptation
in frequency-selective channels,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 58, no. 2,
Then we have used the backward induction method to solve pp. 545–554, Feb. 2010.
the Stackelberg game and proved the existence and uniqueness [11] E. Jorswieck, H. Boche, and S. Naik, “Energy-aware utility regions:
of the Stackelberg equilibrium. An iteration algorithm based Multiple access pareto boundary,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 9,
no. 7, pp. 2216–2226, Jul. 2010.
on the interference price updating has been proposed to obtain [12] G. Debreu, “A social equilibrium existence theorem,” Proc. Nat. A-
the Stackelberg equilibrium solution. Simulation results have cad. Sciences, vol. 38, pp. 886–893, 1952.
been presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed [13] F. Wong, M. Krunz, and S. Cui, “Price-based spectrum management in
cognitive radio networks,” IEEE J. Sel. Topics Signal Proc., vol. 2, no. 1,
scheme. pp. 74–87, Feb. 2008.
[14] S. Guruacharya, D. Niyato, E. Hossain, and D. I. Kim, “Hierarchi-
R EFERENCES cal competition in femtocell-based cellular networks,” in Proc. IEEE
[1] D. Knisely, T. Yoshizawa, and F. Favichia, “Standardization of femtocells GLOBECOM’10, (Miami, USA), pp. 1–5, Dec. 2010.
in 3GPP,” IEEE Comm. Mag., vol. 47, no. 9, pp. 68–75, Sep. 2009.

1665