Fair resource allocation for device-to-device communications in wireless cellular networks

In this paper, we consider the fair resource allocation problem for device-to-device (D2D) communications in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)-based wireless cellular networks. In particular, we propose a two-phase solution approach where resource allocation for cellular downlink and uplink flows with max-min fairness is performed in the first phase and resource allocation for D2D flows with rate protection for cellular flows is conducted in the second phase. We present both optimal formulations and low-complexity algorithms to solve the corresponding problems in the two phases. We also analyze the complexity of both solutions. Finally, we present numerical results to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithms in exploiting the spatial spectrum opportunities for D2D communications.