In this paper, we consider the radio access network (RAN) slicing in heterogeneous communication systems. Typically, the infrastructure provider (InP) allocates the radio resources to the mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) as RAN slices, and then the MVNOs use the allocated resources to provide services for their users. As the RAN being heterogeneous, the users are generally with different quality of service (QoS) requirements. Besides, the MVNOs also have different intrinsic interests in terms of collecting revenue and satisfying users QoS demand and thus require different amount of resources. In this regard, it is challenging for the InP to determine the resource allocation strategy. To deal with this issue, we propose a three-layer Stackelberg game (TLSG) to jointly solve the frequency and power allocation for the InP. We derive the unique equilibrium for the special case where each MVNO uniform users and propose a bi-level differential evolution algorithm for more general cases. Simulation results reveal that both users and the InP can be better off when the RAN is sliced for different types of users, and that the MVNOs focusing more on revenue collecting result in the InP and the users obtaining less payoff.

中文翻译：

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异构通信系统的多层无线网络切片

在本文中，我们考虑了异构通信系统中的无线接入网（RAN）分片。通常，基础设施提供商（InP）将无线资源作为RAN片分配给移动虚拟网络运营商（MVNO），然后MVNO使用分配的资源为其用户提供服务。由于RAN是异构的，因此用户通常具有不同的服务质量（QoS）要求。此外，MVNO在收集收入和满足用户QoS需求方面也具有不同的内在利益，因此需要不同数量的资源。在这方面，InP确定资源分配策略具有挑战性。为了解决此问题，我们提出了三层Stackelberg游戏（TLSG），以共同解决InP的频率和功率分配。我们推导了每个MVNO统一用户的特殊情况的唯一平衡，并针对更一般的情况提出了一种双级差分进化算法。仿真结果表明，当针对不同类型的用户划分RAN时，用户和InP都可以得到更好的收益，而MVNO更加关注收入收集会导致InP，而用户获得的收益更少。