Satisfaction Equilibrium: A General Framework for QoS Provisioning in Self-Configuring Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces the satisfaction equilibrium (SE), a new concept for QoS provisioning in self-configuring wireless networks, focusing on guaranteeing minimum QoS with minimal effort, and provides decentralized algorithms for convergence.

Contribution

It proposes the satisfaction equilibrium (SE) as an alternative to Nash equilibrium for QoS guarantees, including conditions for existence, uniqueness, and an efficient subset with decentralized convergence.

Findings

At least one efficient SE always exists if QoS can be supported.

Decentralized algorithm ensures convergence to SE using only local information.

SE guarantees minimum QoS with minimal effort, unlike NE.

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the concept of equilibrium and quality of service (QoS) provisioning in self-configuring wireless networks with non-cooperative radio devices (RD). In contrast with the Nash equilibrium (NE), where RDs are interested in selfishly maximizing its QoS, we present a concept of equilibrium, named satisfaction equilibrium (SE), where RDs are interested only in guaranteing a minimum QoS. We provide the conditions for the existence and the uniqueness of the SE. Later, in order to provide an equilibrium selection framework for the SE, we introduce the concept of effort or cost of satisfaction, for instance, in terms of transmit power levels, constellation sizes, etc. Using the idea of effort, the set of efficient SE (ESE) is defined. At the ESE, transmitters satisfy their minimum QoS incurring in the lowest effort. We prove that contrary to the (generalized) NE, at least one ESE always exists whenever the network is able to simultaneously support the individual QoS requests. Finally, we provide a fully decentralized algorithm to allow self-configuring networks to converge to one of the SE relying only on local information.