Dynamic Uplink Radio Access Selection of LTE Licensed-Assisted Access to Unlicensed Spectrum: An Optimization Game

• Published in: IEEE communications letters Vol. 20; no. 12; pp. 2510 - 2513
• Main Authors: Zhang, Meng, Zhang, Xin, Chang, Yongyu, Yang, Dacheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.12.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: dynamic radio access selection; Game theory; IEEE 802.11 Standard; Interference; LAA; Nash equilibrium; Optimization; optimum performance; potential games; Random access; Scheduling; Uplink; Uplinking
• ISSN: 1089-7798; 1558-2558
• DOI: 10.1109/LCOMM.2016.2608348

Licensed-assisted access (LAA) to unlicensed spectrum has drawn the worldwide attention from academia and industry since its emergence at the Third Generation Partnership Project in 2015. As a key technology for Long Term Evolution unlicensed spectrum deployment, LAA goes far toward solving the coexistence problems in the 5-GHz unlicensed bands. However, owing to unpredictable interference from unlicensed-band opponent systems, for example, WiFi, LAA uplink transmission may suffer from serious inefficiency in scheduling-based radio access. To tackle such an issue, this letter proposes a dynamic uplink radio access selection scheme between scheduling and random access for LAA uplink transmission. Next, in order to exploit optimum performance, an optimization game of the uplink radio access selection is formulated. Last but not least, the optimum solution of the game is proved to exist by potential game theory, laying instructive foundations for LAA uplink standardizations.