Wireless networks consist of devices that try to communicate with each
other in the most efficient manner. These devices make critical decisions
with regard to their transmission parameters so as to comply with the
quality of service (QoS) specifications and system-wide goals. Such decisions
are often conflicting in nature, particularly so, when limited resources
are shared. The interactions among devices (or users) sharing a common
resource can be formally modeled using game theory. Game theory is a branch
of (applied) mathematics that describes and studies the interactive decision
problems. In such problems, the decisions made by each decision maker
affect the outcomes and, thus, the resulting situation of all decision
makers involved. When applied to wireless networks, the outcome of these
games, and consequently the overall network performance, can be predicted
using game theoretic techniques. In this tutorial, we will study the
basics of game theory (which by no means is a complete exposure to game
theory). We will talk about various problems in wireless networks and
see how game theory can be effectively applied to solve such problems.
Though we will not go into the solution techniques, we will discuss
the problem statement and their game theoretic formalization. The problems
will be selected from the broad domain of cellular networks and services,
ad hoc networks, and sensor networks. The topics include power control,
media access control, link adaptation, transmission rate selection,
spectrum sensing and cognitive radio, routing, and co-operation in ad
hoc networks. An important objective of this tutorial is to give the
audience the opportunity to apply game theoretic design techniques for
solving various resource allocation problems in wireless networks.
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