A Multi-Leader Multi-Follower Stackelberg Game for Coalition-Based UAV MEC Networks

Abstract

In this letter, we investigate the joint optimization of computation offloading, channel allocation and position deployment problem for coalition-based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) mobile edge computing networks. To characterize the hierarchical offloading feature in coalition-based UAV network, we propose the hierarchical framework and formulate a discrete multi-leader multi-follower energy minimization Stackelberg game. In addition, we prove that the multi-leader subgame and multi-follower subgame are exact potential games with Nash equilibrium. Then the existence of Stackelberg equilibrium (SE) is guaranteed. The spatial adaptive play-best response based hierarchical iterative learning (SAP-BRHIL) algorithm is proposed to achieve the SE. The simulation results show that the proposed SAP-BRHIL algorithm can achieve the lowest network energy consumption compared with some existing approaches.