9 research outputs found
Jamming-Resistant Learning in Wireless Networks
We consider capacity maximization in wireless networks under adversarial
interference conditions. There are n links, each consisting of a sender and a
receiver, which repeatedly try to perform a successful transmission. In each
time step, the success of attempted transmissions depends on interference
conditions, which are captured by an interference model (e.g. the SINR model).
Additionally, an adversarial jammer can render a (1-delta)-fraction of time
steps unsuccessful. For this scenario, we analyze a framework for distributed
learning algorithms to maximize the number of successful transmissions. Our
main result is an algorithm based on no-regret learning converging to an
O(1/delta)-approximation. It provides even a constant-factor approximation when
the jammer exactly blocks a (1-delta)-fraction of time steps. In addition, we
consider a stochastic jammer, for which we obtain a constant-factor
approximation after a polynomial number of time steps. We also consider more
general settings, in which links arrive and depart dynamically, and where each
sender tries to reach multiple receivers. Our algorithms perform favorably in
simulations.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures, typos remove
Smoothness for Simultaneous Composition of Mechanisms with Admission
We study social welfare of learning outcomes in mechanisms with admission. In
our repeated game there are bidders and mechanisms, and in each round
each mechanism is available for each bidder only with a certain probability.
Our scenario is an elementary case of simple mechanism design with incomplete
information, where availabilities are bidder types. It captures natural
applications in online markets with limited supply and can be used to model
access of unreliable channels in wireless networks.
If mechanisms satisfy a smoothness guarantee, existing results show that
learning outcomes recover a significant fraction of the optimal social welfare.
These approaches, however, have serious drawbacks in terms of plausibility and
computational complexity. Also, the guarantees apply only when availabilities
are stochastically independent among bidders.
In contrast, we propose an alternative approach where each bidder uses a
single no-regret learning algorithm and applies it in all rounds. This results
in what we call availability-oblivious coarse correlated equilibria. It
exponentially decreases the learning burden, simplifies implementation (e.g.,
as a method for channel access in wireless devices), and thereby addresses some
of the concerns about Bayes-Nash equilibria and learning outcomes in Bayesian
settings. Our main results are general composition theorems for smooth
mechanisms when valuation functions of bidders are lattice-submodular. They
rely on an interesting connection to the notion of correlation gap of
submodular functions over product lattices.Comment: Full version of WINE 2016 pape
Beyond Geometry : Towards Fully Realistic Wireless Models
Signal-strength models of wireless communications capture the gradual fading
of signals and the additivity of interference. As such, they are closer to
reality than other models. However, nearly all theoretic work in the SINR model
depends on the assumption of smooth geometric decay, one that is true in free
space but is far off in actual environments. The challenge is to model
realistic environments, including walls, obstacles, reflections and anisotropic
antennas, without making the models algorithmically impractical or analytically
intractable.
We present a simple solution that allows the modeling of arbitrary static
situations by moving from geometry to arbitrary decay spaces. The complexity of
a setting is captured by a metricity parameter Z that indicates how far the
decay space is from satisfying the triangular inequality. All results that hold
in the SINR model in general metrics carry over to decay spaces, with the
resulting time complexity and approximation depending on Z in the same way that
the original results depends on the path loss term alpha. For distributed
algorithms, that to date have appeared to necessarily depend on the planarity,
we indicate how they can be adapted to arbitrary decay spaces.
Finally, we explore the dependence on Z in the approximability of core
problems. In particular, we observe that the capacity maximization problem has
exponential upper and lower bounds in terms of Z in general decay spaces. In
Euclidean metrics and related growth-bounded decay spaces, the performance
depends on the exact metricity definition, with a polynomial upper bound in
terms of Z, but an exponential lower bound in terms of a variant parameter phi.
On the plane, the upper bound result actually yields the first approximation of
a capacity-type SINR problem that is subexponential in alpha
An Online Approach to Dynamic Channel Access and Transmission Scheduling
Making judicious channel access and transmission scheduling decisions is
essential for improving performance as well as energy and spectral efficiency
in multichannel wireless systems. This problem has been a subject of extensive
study in the past decade, and the resulting dynamic and opportunistic channel
access schemes can bring potentially significant improvement over traditional
schemes. However, a common and severe limitation of these dynamic schemes is
that they almost always require some form of a priori knowledge of the channel
statistics. A natural remedy is a learning framework, which has also been
extensively studied in the same context, but a typical learning algorithm in
this literature seeks only the best static policy, with performance measured by
weak regret, rather than learning a good dynamic channel access policy. There
is thus a clear disconnect between what an optimal channel access policy can
achieve with known channel statistics that actively exploits temporal, spatial
and spectral diversity, and what a typical existing learning algorithm aims
for, which is the static use of a single channel devoid of diversity gain. In
this paper we bridge this gap by designing learning algorithms that track known
optimal or sub-optimal dynamic channel access and transmission scheduling
policies, thereby yielding performance measured by a form of strong regret, the
accumulated difference between the reward returned by an optimal solution when
a priori information is available and that by our online algorithm. We do so in
the context of two specific algorithms that appeared in [1] and [2],
respectively, the former for a multiuser single-channel setting and the latter
for a single-user multichannel setting. In both cases we show that our
algorithms achieve sub-linear regret uniform in time and outperforms the
standard weak-regret learning algorithms.Comment: 10 pages, to appear in MobiHoc 201
Incentives in dynamic markets
In this thesis, we consider a variety of combinatorial optimization problems within a common theme of uncertainty and selfish behavior. In our first scenario, the input is collected from selfish players. Here, we study extensions of the so-called smoothness framework for mechanisms, a very useful technique for bounding the inefficiency of equilibria, to the cases of varying mechanism availability and participation of risk-averse players. In both of these cases, our main results are general theorems for the class of (lambda,mu)-smooth mechanisms. We show that these mechanisms guarantee at most a (small) constant factor performance loss in the extended settings. In our second scenario, we do not have access to the exact numerical input. Within this context, we explore combinatorial extensions of the well-known secretary problem under the assumption that the incoming elements only reveal their ordinal position within the set of previously arrived elements. We first observe that many existing algorithms for special matroid structures maintain their competitive ratio in the ordinal model. In contrast, we provide a lower bound for algorithms that are oblivious to the matroid structure. Finally, we design new algorithms that obtain constant competitive ratios for a variety of combinatorial problems