A distributed matching game for exploring resource allocation in satellite networks

Resource allocation strategy is drawing much more attention in satellite networks due to limited resources, e.g., limited observation resources and transmission resources. For earth observation tasks, not all potential observation tasks are being observed, and not all observation data can be transmitted to the ground station. It is especially crucial to improve the efficiency of resource utilization and satisfy the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of users. In this paper, we try to implement matching theory to solve the resource allocation problem. We propose a novel one-to-one matching model under bilateral preferences by building the preference functions for tasks and resources. Then, we introduce the Task-Oriented Gale-Shapley (T-O GS) algorithm and Adjacent Time Slot Matching (ATSM) algorithm to dynamically achieve stable matching. Furthermore, we analyze the stability and uniqueness of the proposed algorithm. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can significantly improve the availability and the efficiency of resource allocation with low computational complexity.