Multi‐Criteria Bargaining Based Spectrum Sharing Scheme for <scp>6G</scp> In‐X Subnetworks

ABSTRACT Future network technology provides a new stage for industrial production systems, especially smart manufacturing system (SMS), which is a fully integrated and collaborative factory platform that responds in real time to meet changing demands and conditions in the factory. In this paper, we propose a new spectrum allocation scheme for the macro/small cell overlaid SMS. To improve the communication performance, we develop a new solution concept, called the multi‐criteria bargaining solution ( MCBS ), according to the combination of multi‐criteria decision strategy and cooperative bargaining ideas. Through an interactive two‐step manner, the main feature of MCBS is to harness the full synergy of heterogeneous cell coexisting infrastructure while maximizing mutual advantages in the two‐tier cellular network. In an indoor smart factory environment, our hierarchical approach can effectively handle the multi‐agent multi‐criteria resource sharing problem. Finally, the extensive simulation results are presented to illustrate the potential advantages of our spectrum sharing policy. Especially, our proposed approach increases the network throughput, service payoff, and operator fairness by about 10%, 10%, and 20%, respectively, than the existing baseline protocols.