  In this paper, we study the problem of cooperative interference management in
an OFDMA two-tier small cell network. In particular, we propose a novel
approach for allowing the small cells to cooperate, so as to optimize their
sum-rate, while cooperatively satisfying their maximum transmit power
constraints. Unlike existing work which assumes that only disjoint groups of
cooperative small cells can emerge, we formulate the small cells' cooperation
problem as a coalition formation game with overlapping coalitions. In this
game, each small cell base station can choose to participate in one or more
cooperative groups (or coalitions) simultaneously, so as to optimize the
tradeoff between the benefits and costs associated with cooperation. We study
the properties of the proposed overlapping coalition formation game and we show
that it exhibits negative externalities due to interference. Then, we propose a
novel decentralized algorithm that allows the small cell base stations to
interact and self-organize into a stable overlapping coalitional structure.
Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm results in a notable
performance advantage in terms of the total system sum-rate, relative to the
noncooperative case and the classical algorithms for coalitional games with
non-overlapping coalitions.
