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  2020, Vol. 1 Issue (3): 221-233    doi: 10.23919/ICN.2020.0007
    
Pricing-based edge caching resource allocation in fog radio access networks
Yanxiang Jiang*(),Hui Ge(),Chaoyi Wan(),Baotian Fan(),Jie Yan()
National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
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Abstract  

The edge caching resource allocation problem in Fog Radio Access Networks (F-RANs) is investigated. An incentive mechanism is introduced to motivate Content Providers (CPs) to participate in the resource allocation procedure. We formulate the interaction between the cloud server and the CPs as a Stackelberg game, where the cloud server sets nonuniform prices for the Fog Access Points (F-APs) while the CPs lease the F-APs for caching their most popular contents. Then, by exploiting the multiplier penalty function method, we transform the constrained optimization problem of the cloud server into an equivalent non-constrained one, which is further solved by using the simplex search method. Moreover, the existence and uniqueness of the Nash Equilibrium (NE) of the Stackelberg game are analyzed theoretically. Furthermore, we propose a uniform pricing based resource allocation strategy by eliminating the competition among the CPs, and we also theoretically analyze the factors that affect the uniform pricing strategy of the cloud server. We also propose a global optimization-based resource allocation strategy by further eliminating the competition between the cloud server and the CPs. Simulation results are provided for quantifying the proposed strategies by showing their efficiency in pricing and resource allocation.



Key wordsfog radio access networks      edge caching      resource allocation      Stackelberg game      nonuniform pricing      Nash equilibrium      competition     
Received: 25 May 2020      Online: 19 August 2021
Fund:  National Natural Science Foundation of China(61971129);Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province(BK20181264);Research Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Integrated Services Networks (Xidian University)(ISN19-10);Research Fund of the Key Laboratory of Wireless Sensor Network & Communication (Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)(2017002);UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council(EP/K040685/2)
Corresponding Authors: Yanxiang Jiang     E-mail: yxjiang@seu.edu.cn;hge@seu.edu.cn;chaoyi_wan@seu.edu.cn;220180743@seu.edu.cn;220180727@seu.edu.cn
About author: Yanxiang Jiang received the BS degree in electrical engineering from Nanjing University, Nanjing, China in 1999 and the MS and PhD degrees in communications and information systems from Southeast University, Nanjing, China in 2003 and 2007, respectively. He was a visiting scholar with the Signals and Information Group, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland at College Park, College Park, MD, USA in 2014. He is currently an associate professor at National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University, Nanjing, China. His research interests are in the area of broadband wireless mobile communications, covering topics, such as edge caching, radio resource allocation and management, fog radio access networks, small cells and heterogeneous networks, cooperative communications, green communications, device to device communications, massive MIMO, and machine learning for wireless communications.|Hui Ge received the MS degree in communications and information systems from Southeast University, Nanjing, China in 2019. Currently, she works at Intel Corp. (Shanghai). Her research interests include radio resource management and edge caching.|Chaoyi Wan is currently pursuing the MS degree in communications and information systems at Southeast University, Nanjing, China. His research interests include radio resource management and edge caching.|Baotian Fan is currently pursuing the MS degree in communications and information systems at Southeast University, Nanjing, China. His research interests include radio resource management and edge caching.|Jie Yan is currently pursuing the MS degree in communications and information systems at Southeast University, Nanjing, China. Her research interests include radio resource management and edge caching.
Cite this article:

Yanxiang Jiang,Hui Ge,Chaoyi Wan,Baotian Fan,Jie Yan. Pricing-based edge caching resource allocation in fog radio access networks. , 2020, 1: 221-233.

URL:

http://icn.tsinghuajournals.com/10.23919/ICN.2020.0007     OR     http://icn.tsinghuajournals.com/Y2020/V1/I3/221

Fig. 1 Illustration of the F-RAN.
Fig. 2 Cache hit rate of the CPs vs. number of iterations for NUP and the baseline.
Fig. 3 Leasing fraction of the F-APs for the CPs vs. number of iterations for NUP.
Fig. 4 Profit of the cloud server vs. storage capacity of the F-APs Q for NUP and UP.
Fig. 5 Leasing fraction of the F-APs for the CPs vs. storage capacity of the F-APs Q for UP.
Fig. 6 Leasing fraction of the F-APs for the CPs vs. number of iterations for GO.
Fig. 7 Average cache hit rate of the CPs vs. storage capacity of the F-APs Q for three proposed strategies.
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