Joint Relay Selection and Load Balancing using D2D Communications for 5G HetNet MEC

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) has seen its fast growth in the past years by taking advantage of the computation capabilities in edge facilities. In the meantime, integrating Device-to-Device (D2D) communications into Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) emerges as a promising solution to improve system performance. For instance, D2D can be used to offload traffic from heavily-loaded cells to light-loaded small cells. In this paper, we develop a joint relay selection scheme, in which a cellular operator decides whether users can assist each other to bridge their traffic to small cell MEC application servers. Our proposed scheme has a dynamic load balancing function based on D2D communications using the Kuhn-Munkres (K-M). Simulation results show that our design can significantly increase the number of admitted users while achieving high load balancing fairness index among small cells.