Understanding Game Theory via Wireless Power Control

TL;DR

This paper introduces game theory concepts and demonstrates their application to wireless power control, highlighting how distributed network nodes can be modeled as competing players to optimize system resources.

Contribution

It provides an accessible introduction to game theory and applies it to wireless power control, illustrating its relevance in distributed network resource management.

Findings

Game theory effectively models distributed network interactions.

Power control in interference channels can be analyzed using GT.

Distributed nodes can be optimized as strategic players.

Abstract

In this lecture note, we introduce the basic concepts of game theory (GT), a branch of mathematics traditionally studied and applied in the areas of economics, political science, and biology, which has emerged in the last fifteen years as an effective framework for communications, networking, and signal processing (SP). The real catalyzer has been the blooming of all issues related to distributed networks, in which the nodes can be modeled as players in a game competing for system resources. Some relevant notions of GT are introduced by elaborating on a simple application in the context of wireless communications, notably the power control in an interference channel (IC) with two transmitters and two receivers.