Multi-Layer Radio Network Slicing for Heterogeneous Communication Systems

In this paper, we consider the radio access network (RAN) slicing in heterogeneous communication systems. Typically, the infrastructure provider (InP) allocates the radio resources to the mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) as RAN slices, and then the MVNOs use the allocated resources to provide services for their users. As the RAN being heterogeneous, the users are generally with different quality of service (QoS) requirements. Besides, the MVNOs also have different intrinsic interests in terms of collecting revenue and satisfying users QoS demand and thus require different amount of resources. In this regard, it is challenging for the InP to determine the resource allocation strategy. To deal with this issue, we propose a three-layer Stackelberg game (TLSG) to jointly solve the frequency and power allocation for the InP. We derive the unique equilibrium for the special case where each MVNO uniform users and propose a bi-level differential evolution algorithm for more general cases. Simulation results reveal that both users and the InP can be better off when the RAN is sliced for different types of users, and that the MVNOs focusing more on revenue collecting result in the InP and the users obtaining less payoff.