Redesigning Resource Management in Wireless Networks based on Games in Satisfaction Form

The rise in popularity of smartphones, along with the need for personalized services with different Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, has created an increased interest for energy-efficient resource management frameworks in wireless networks, where user actions and decisions are interdependent. Our focus is placed on the transformation and treatment of the uplink power control problem under the perspective of game theory in satisfaction form. The novel concept of Minimum Efficient Satisfaction Equilibrium (MESE) is introduced and its properties are investigated. Considering that each user is associated with a cost function with respect to its actions, the MESE point defines each user’s transmission power that satisfies its QoS prerequisites with the lowest cost. We prove that at the MESE point the system achieves the lowest possible cumulative cost, while each user individually is penalized with the minimum cost compared to the corresponding cost of any Efficient Satisfaction Equilibrium (ESE) point. The existence, uniqueness and benefits of the MESE are studied, and a distributed low complexity algorithm based on the Best Response Dynamics that converges to the MESE point is proposed. Through modeling and simulation, the performance of the proposed novel resource management framework is evaluated, and its benefits are revealed.