Efficient radio-resource utilization by user position control with incentive rewards

Since radio resources such as bandwidth and signal power are limited and shared by users in a service area, all of the users cannot consistently obtain satisfactory radio resources when the number of users in the service area increases past a certain point. A solution for such a problem is user-position control. In the user-position control, the operator informs users of better communication areas (or spots) and navigates them to these positions. However, because of subjective costs caused by subjects moving from their original to a new position, they do not always attempt to move. To motivate users to contribute their resources in network services that require resource contributions for users, incentive-rewarding mechanisms have been proposed. However, there are no mechanisms that distribute rewards appropriately according to subjective factors involving users. Furthermore, since the conventional mechanisms limit how rewards are paid, they are applicable only for the network service they targeted. In this paper, we propose a novel incentive-rewarding mechanism to solve these problems, using an external evaluator and interactive learning agents. We also investigated ways of distributing rewards based on user state and user contributions. We applied the proposed mechanism and reward control to the user-position control, and demonstrated its validity. copyright