  Device-to-Device (D2D) communications, which allow direct communication among
mobile devices, have been proposed as an enabler of local services in 3GPP
LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) cellular networks. This work investigates a hierarchical
LTE-A network framework consisting of multiple D2D operators at the upper layer
and a group of devices at the lower layer. We propose a cooperative model that
allows the operators to improve their utility in terms of revenue by sharing
their devices, and the devices to improve their payoff in terms of end-to-end
throughput by collaboratively performing multi-path routing. To help
understanding the interaction among operators and devices, we present a
game-theoretic framework to model the cooperation behavior, and further, we
propose a layered coalitional game (LCG) to address the decision making
problems among them. Specifically, the cooperation of operators is modeled as
an overlapping coalition formation game (CFG) in a partition form, in which
operators should form a stable coalitional structure. Moreover, the cooperation
of devices is modeled as a coalitional graphical game (CGG), in which devices
establish links among each other to form a stable network structure for
multi-path routing.We adopt the extended recursive core, and Nash network, as
the stability concept for the proposed CFG and CGG, respectively. Numerical
results demonstrate that the proposed LCG yields notable gains compared to both
the non-cooperative case and a LCG variant and achieves good convergence speed.
