Efficiency and Fairness in the Resource Allocation to Device-to-Device Communications in LTE-A

Device-to-Device (D2D) communications underlying a cellular network have been recognized as an important approach for performance improvement in 5G networks. In this paper, we refer to an LTE-A scenario where the underlay mode is adopted to allow D2D pairs to communicate directly by sharing sub-channels with Cellular Users (CUEs). Our aim is to propose heuristic resource allocation and pairing schemes to distribute radio resources among CUEs and D2Ds in a cell taking the interference because of pairing into account. In particular, we compare suitably-modified Proportional Fairness (PF) schemes with heuristic max-capacity approaches in terms of CUE and D2D capacity and fairness conditions. Extensive simulation runs have been carried out (Monte Carlo approach) and have allowed us to select a PF-based scheme and a technique combining Round-Robin with capacity maximization as two promising alternatives in order to assign resources to D2Ds and CUEs.