Capacity and Fairness Analysis of Game Theoretic Power Controlled Wireless Access Network

In wireless networks, transmission power has adverse effects. With low transmission power, the received signal may be eclipsed by the noise and interference from other transmitters, resulting in low SINR. On the other hand, with high transmission power, the interference seen at other receivers could be too large, also resulting in low SINR. This paper aims to address this problem by using the game theory. Particularly, the scenario of wireless access network with two transmitters, each with two intended receivers, is considered. Selection of transmission power of the two transmitters is modeled as the two-person game, which would lead to a Nash Equilibrium in a non-cooperative scenario. However, with a proper power control, the scenario can become a cooperative game, with a possibility of operating at a Pareto optimum. Three utility functions are investigated, and the trade-off between capacity and fairness is analyzed.