Mechanism design for base station association and resource allocation in downlink OFDMA network

We consider a resource management problem in a multi-cell downlink OFDMA network whereby the goal is to find the optimal combination of (i) assignment of users to base stations and (ii) resource allocation strategies at each base station. Efficient resource management protocols must rely on users truthfully reporting privately held information such as downlink channel states. However, individual users can manipulate the resulting resource allocation (by misreporting their private information) if by doing so they can improve their payoff. Therefore, it is of interest to design efficient resource management protocols that are strategy-proof, i.e. it is in the users' best interests to truthfully report their private information. Unfortunately, we show that the implementation of any protocol that is efficient and strategy-proof is NP-hard. Thus, we propose a computationally tractable strategy-proof mechanism that is approximately efficient, i.e. the solution obtained yields at least 1/2 of the optimal throughput. Simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism.