Normalized Nash Equilibrium for Power Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks

International audience—We consider a cognitive radio system consisting of several secondary networks and primary user-terminals (primary-UTs). In a secondary network a secondary-base station (secondary-BS) transmits to a secondary-user terminal (secondary-UT) with certain power. Secondary-BSs are constrained to allocate transmitting powers such that the total interference at each primary-UT is below a given threshold. We formulate the power allocation problem as a concave non cooperative game with secondary-BSs as players and multiple primary-UTs enforcing coupled constraints. The equilibrium selection is based on the concept of normalized Nash equilibrium (NNE). When the interference at a secondary-UT from adjacent secondary-BSs is negligible, the NNE is shown to be unique for any strictly concave utility. The NNE is also shown to be the solution of a concave potential game. We propose a distributed algorithm which converges to the unique NNE. When the interference at a secondary-UT from adjacent secondary-BSs is not negligible, an NNE may not be unique and the computation of the NNE has exponential complexity. To avoid these drawbacks, we introduce the concept of weakly normalized Nash equilibrium (WNNE) which keeps the most of NNEs' interesting properties but, in contrast to the latter, the WNNE can be determined with low complexity. We show the usefulness of the WNNE when the utility function is the Shannon capacity. I. INTRODUCTION A traditional static spectrum access leads to spectrum under-utilization. Cognitive radio can enhance the spectrum utilization if primary network providers (license spectrum holders) allow secondary users (unlicensed users) to access the licensed spectrum provided that the primary users (subscribers of the primary network providers) are protected from the interference of secondary users [2]. Without proper policies for power and frequency band allocation, the transmission rates at primary-UTs' would degrade significantly and thus, a primary network provider would not allow secondary users to access the spectrum. Therefore, in a secondary network a secondary-BS must select its transmission power using cognitive radio technology such that the total interference from secondary-BSs at each primary-UT is below an acceptable threshold. In practice, each secondary-BS is an independent entity and selects its transmission power level in order to maximize onl

Energy-Aware Competitive Power Allocation for Heterogeneous Networks Under QoS Constraints

This work proposes a distributed power allocation scheme for maximizing energy efficiency in the uplink of orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA)-based heterogeneous networks (HetNets). The user equipment (UEs) in the network are modeled as rational agents that engage in a non-cooperative game where each UE allocates its available transmit power over the set of assigned subcarriers so as to maximize its individual utility (defined as the user's throughput per Watt of transmit power) subject to minimum-rate constraints. In this framework, the relevant solution concept is that of Debreu equilibrium, a generalization of Nash equilibrium which accounts for the case where an agent's set of possible actions depends on the actions of its opponents. Since the problem at hand might not be feasible, Debreu equilibria do not always exist. However, using techniques from fractional programming, we provide a characterization of equilibrial power allocation profiles when they do exist. In particular, Debreu equilibria are found to be the fixed points of a water-filling best response operator whose water level is a function of minimum rate constraints and circuit power. Moreover, we also describe a set of sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of Debreu equilibria exploiting the contraction properties of the best response operator. This analysis provides the necessary tools to derive a power allocation scheme that steers the network to equilibrium in an iterative and distributed manner without the need for any centralized processing. Numerical simulations are then used to validate the analysis and assess the performance of the proposed algorithm as a function of the system parameters.Comment: 37 pages, 12 figures, to appear IEEE Trans. Wireless Commu

A Comprehensive Survey of Potential Game Approaches to Wireless Networks

Potential games form a class of non-cooperative games where unilateral improvement dynamics are guaranteed to converge in many practical cases. The potential game approach has been applied to a wide range of wireless network problems, particularly to a variety of channel assignment problems. In this paper, the properties of potential games are introduced, and games in wireless networks that have been proven to be potential games are comprehensively discussed.Comment: 44 pages, 6 figures, to appear in IEICE Transactions on Communications, vol. E98-B, no. 9, Sept. 201

Distributed Learning Policies for Power Allocation in Multiple Access Channels

We analyze the problem of distributed power allocation for orthogonal multiple access channels by considering a continuous non-cooperative game whose strategy space represents the users' distribution of transmission power over the network's channels. When the channels are static, we find that this game admits an exact potential function and this allows us to show that it has a unique equilibrium almost surely. Furthermore, using the game's potential property, we derive a modified version of the replicator dynamics of evolutionary game theory which applies to this continuous game, and we show that if the network's users employ a distributed learning scheme based on these dynamics, then they converge to equilibrium exponentially quickly. On the other hand, a major challenge occurs if the channels do not remain static but fluctuate stochastically over time, following a stationary ergodic process. In that case, the associated ergodic game still admits a unique equilibrium, but the learning analysis becomes much more complicated because the replicator dynamics are no longer deterministic. Nonetheless, by employing results from the theory of stochastic approximation, we show that users still converge to the game's unique equilibrium. Our analysis hinges on a game-theoretical result which is of independent interest: in finite player games which admit a (possibly nonlinear) convex potential function, the replicator dynamics (suitably modified to account for nonlinear payoffs) converge to an eps-neighborhood of an equilibrium at time of order O(log(1/eps)).Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures. Revised manuscript structure and added more material and figures for the case of stochastically fluctuating channels. This version will appear in the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication, Special Issue on Game Theory in Wireless Communication