This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. 1 Potential Games for Energy-Efficient Power Control and Subcarrier Allocation in Uplink Multic

Abstract—The problem of non-cooperative resource allocation in multicell uplink OFDMA systems is considered in this paper. Non-cooperative games for subcarrier allocation and transmit power control are considered, aiming at maximizing the users’ SINRs and, most notably, the users ’ energy-efficiency, measured in bit/Joule and representing the number of error-free delivered bits for each Joule of energy used for transmission. The theory of potential games is used to come up with several non-cooperative games admitting Nash equilibrium points. Since the proposed resource allocation games exhibit a computational complexity that may be in some cases prohibitive, approximate, reduced-complexity, implementations are also considered. For comparison purposes, some considerations on social-optimum solutions are also discussed. Numerical results confirm that the proposed re-source allocation schemes are effective in increasing the network energy-efficiency (as compared to rate-maximizing schemes), thus permitting to optimize the use of the energy stored in the battery. Moreover, the proposed approximate implementations exhibit a performance very close to that of the exact procedures. Index Terms—OFDMA, Potential games, power control, sub-carrier allocation, Nash equilibrium, social optimum, energy efficiency. I