Game Theory for Wireless and Communication Networks

Speaker

Walid Saad
Princeton University

Abstract

Game theoretical techniques have recently become prevalent in a wide range of engineering applications, notably, in wireless and communication networks. With the emergence of novel networking paradigms such as cognitive radio or cooperative communications and the need for self-organizing and decentralized  networks, it has become imperative to seek game theoretical tools that allow networks, it has become imperative to seek game theoretical tools that allow  studying and analyzing the interactions of the nodes in future communication networks. In this talk, following a brief overview on the fundamentals and  potential of game theory, we put a particular emphasis on coalitional game theory, which is a branch of game theory that deals with cooperative behavior. We classify coalitional game theory in three distinct classes: Canonical games, coalition formation games, and coalitional graph games. For each class, we  present the basic components and solution concepts, and, then, we study its application within several emerging areas of wireless and communication networks. We conclude the talk by an overview on current and projected interdisciplinary research directions that span the areas of game theory and communication networks.

About the Speaker

Walid Saad received his BE degree in computer and communications engineering from the Lebanese University, Faculty of Engineering II, in 2004, his ME in computer and communications engineering from the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 2007, and his PhD degree from the University of Oslo in 2010. From August 2008 till July 2009 he was a visiting scholar in the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Currently, he is a postdoctoral research associate at the Electrical Engineering Department at Princeton University. His research interests include applications of game theory in wireless networks, coalitional game theory, cognitive radio, autonomous communication and wireless communication systems (UMTS, WiMAX, LTE, etc). He was the first author of the papers that received the Best Paper Award at the 7th International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc and Wireless Networks (WiOpt), in June 2009 and at the 5th International Conference on Internet Monitoring and Protection (ICIMP) in May 2010.